title: Annotated ESTs from various tissues of the brown planthopper Nilaparvata lugens: a genomic resource for studying agricultural pests.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Hemiptera, Delphacidae), is a serious insect pests of rice plants. Major means of BPH control are application of agricultural chemicals and cultivation of BPH resistant rice varieties. Nevertheless, BPH strains that are resistant to agricultural chemicals have developed, and BPH strains have appeared that are virulent against the resistant rice varieties. Expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis and related applications are useful to elucidate the mechanisms of resistance and virulence and to reveal physiological aspects of this non-model insect, with its poorly understood genetic background.
  
  
  RESULTS
  More than 37,000 high-quality ESTs, excluding sequences of mitochondrial genome, microbial genomes, and rDNA, have been produced from 18 libraries of various BPH tissues and stages. About 10,200 clusters have been made from whole EST sequences, with average EST size of 627 bp. Among the top ten most abundantly expressed genes, three are unique and show no homology in BLAST searches. The actin gene was highly expressed in BPH, especially in the thorax. Tissue-specifically expressed genes were extracted based on the expression frequency among the libraries. An EST database is available at our web site.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The EST library will provide useful information for transcriptional analyses, proteomic analyses, and gene functional analyses of BPH. Moreover, specific genes for hemimetabolous insects will be identified. The microarray fabricated based on the EST information will be useful for finding genes related to agricultural and biological problems related to this pest.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Owashi, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8634, Japan. hnada@affrc.go.jp
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Noda
authors.forename: Sawako
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kawai
authors.forename: Yoko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Koizumi
authors.forename: Kageaki
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsui
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Shigetoyo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Furukawa
authors.forename: Michihiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shimomura
authors.forename: Kazuei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mita
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D017344:Genes, Insect; D049750:Genome, Insect; D006066:Gonads / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D006430:Hemiptera / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012275:Oryza / Q000469:parasitology; D010935:Plant Diseases / Q000469:parasitology; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction