Hao-Sen Li1, Yu-Hao Huang1, Mei-Lan Chen1,2, Zhan Ren1, Bo-Yuan Qiu1, Patrick De Clercq3, Gerald Heckel4, Hong Pang5. 1. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences / School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. 2. School of Environment and Life Science, Nanning Normal University, Nanning, 530001, China. 3. Department of Plants and Crops, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium. 4. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. 5. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences / School of Ecology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China. lsshpang@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The ladybird beetle Cryptolaemus montrouzieri Mulsant, 1853 (Coleoptera, Coccinellidae) is used worldwide as a biological control agent. It is a predator of various mealybug pests, but it also feeds on alternative prey and can be reared on artificial diets. Relatively little is known about the underlying genetic adaptations of its feeding habits. RESULTS: We report the first high-quality genome sequence for C. montrouzieri. We found that the gene families encoding chemosensors and digestive and detoxifying enzymes among others were significantly expanded or contracted in C. montrouzieri in comparison to published genomes of other beetles. Comparisons of diet-specific larval development, survival and transcriptome profiling demonstrated that differentially expressed genes on unnatural diets as compared to natural prey were enriched in pathways of nutrient metabolism, indicating that the lower performance on the tested diets was caused by nutritional deficiencies. Remarkably, the C. montrouzieri genome also showed a significant expansion in an immune effector gene family. Some of the immune effector genes were dramatically downregulated when larvae were fed unnatural diets. CONCLUSION: We suggest that the evolution of genes related to chemosensing, digestion, and detoxification but also immunity might be associated with diet adaptation of an insect predator. These findings help explain why this predatory ladybird has become a successful biological control agent and will enable the optimization of its mass rearing and use in biological control programs.
BACKGROUND: The ladybird beetle Cryptolaemus montrouzieri Mulsant, 1853 (Coleoptera, Coccinellidae) is used worldwide as a biological control agent. It is a predator of various mealybug pests, but it also feeds on alternative prey and can be reared on artificial diets. Relatively little is known about the underlying genetic adaptations of its feeding habits. RESULTS: We report the first high-quality genome sequence for C. montrouzieri. We found that the gene families encoding chemosensors and digestive and detoxifying enzymes among others were significantly expanded or contracted in C. montrouzieri in comparison to published genomes of other beetles. Comparisons of diet-specific larval development, survival and transcriptome profiling demonstrated that differentially expressed genes on unnatural diets as compared to natural prey were enriched in pathways of nutrient metabolism, indicating that the lower performance on the tested diets was caused by nutritional deficiencies. Remarkably, the C. montrouzieri genome also showed a significant expansion in an immune effector gene family. Some of the immune effector genes were dramatically downregulated when larvae were fed unnatural diets. CONCLUSION: We suggest that the evolution of genes related to chemosensing, digestion, and detoxification but also immunity might be associated with diet adaptation of an insect predator. These findings help explain why this predatory ladybird has become a successful biological control agent and will enable the optimization of its mass rearing and use in biological control programs.
Authors: S L Pearce; D F Clarke; P D East; S Elfekih; K H J Gordon; L S Jermiin; A McGaughran; J G Oakeshott; A Papanicolaou; O P Perera; R V Rane; S Richards; W T Tay; T K Walsh; A Anderson; C J Anderson; S Asgari; P G Board; A Bretschneider; P M Campbell; T Chertemps; J T Christeller; C W Coppin; S J Downes; G Duan; C A Farnsworth; R T Good; L B Han; Y C Han; K Hatje; I Horne; Y P Huang; D S T Hughes; E Jacquin-Joly; W James; S Jhangiani; M Kollmar; S S Kuwar; S Li; N-Y Liu; M T Maibeche; J R Miller; N Montagne; T Perry; J Qu; S V Song; G G Sutton; H Vogel; B P Walenz; W Xu; H-J Zhang; Z Zou; P Batterham; O R Edwards; R Feyereisen; R A Gibbs; D G Heckel; A McGrath; C Robin; S E Scherer; K C Worley; Y D Wu Journal: BMC Biol Date: 2017-07-31 Impact factor: 7.431
Authors: Mathieu Seppey; Panagiotis Ioannidis; Brent C Emerson; Camille Pitteloud; Marc Robinson-Rechavi; Julien Roux; Hermes E Escalona; Duane D McKenna; Bernhard Misof; Seunggwan Shin; Xin Zhou; Robert M Waterhouse; Nadir Alvarez Journal: Genome Biol Date: 2019-05-17 Impact factor: 13.583
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