title: De novo transcriptome of the desert beetle Microdera punctipennis (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) using Illumina RNA-seq technology.
abstract: Insects in Tenebrionidae have unique stress adaptations that allow them to survive temperature extremes. We report here a gene expression profiling of Microdera punctipennis, a beetle in desert region, to gain a global view of its environmental adaptations. A total of 48,158,004 reads were obtained by transcriptome sequencing, and the de novo assembly yielded 56,348 unigenes with an average length of 666 bp. Based on similarity searches with a cut-off E-value of 10(-5) against two protein sequence databases, 41,109 of the unigenes (about 72.96%) were matched to known proteins. An in-depth analysis of the data revealed a large number of genes were associated with environmental stress, including genes that encode heat shock proteins, antifreeze proteins, and enzymes such as chitinase, trehalose, and trehalose-6-phosphate synthase. This study generated a substantial number of M. punctipennis transcript sequences that can be used to discover novel genes associated with stress adaptation. These sequences are a valuable resource for future studies of the desert beetle and other insects in Tenebrionidae. Transcriptome analysis based on Illumina paired-end sequencing is a powerful approach for gene discovery and molecular marker development for non-model species.
authors.affiliation: Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Biological Resources and Genetic Engineering College of Life Science and Technology, Xinjiang University, 14 Shengli Road, Urumqi, 830046, China.
authors.forename: Xueying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Jieqiong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jianhuan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Xiaoning
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001517:Coleoptera / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019295:Computational Biology; D003889:Desert Climate; D004777:Environment; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA / Q000379:methods; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000235:genetics*; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics*