title: De novo analysis of the Adelphocoris suturalis Jakovlev metathoracic scent glands transcriptome and expression patterns of pheromone biosynthesis-related genes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Adelphocoris suturalis Jakovlev is a major cotton pest in Southern China. Metathoracic scent glands (MTGs) produced pheromones that play an important role in survival and population propagation of this species, and also show great potential for pest control. Up to the present, there is little information that underlined the molecular basis of the pheromone biosynthesis of this bug. It is essential to clarify genes involved in the production of pheromone components, and also in the regulation of the variation of the blend ratio.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We sequenced the transcriptome of metathoracic scent glands (MTGs) of A. suturalis. A total of 52 million 91-bp-long reads were obtained and assembled into 70,296 unigenes with a mean length of 691bp. Of these unigenes, a total of 26,744 (38%) unigenes showed significant similarity to known proteins in the NCBI database (E-value<10(-5)). Out of 26,744 hits, 9258 sequences were classified functionally into 25 COG categories, 16,473 unigenes were assigned to 242 KEGG pathways. Through blast searches of public database, a series of transcripts encoding proteins potentially related to the pheromone biosynthesis were selected, and the gene expression patterns were verified by qRT-PCR. The qRT-PCR results indicated that Asdelta9-DES, AsFAR, AsAOX, Ascarboxylesterase, AsNT-ES and AsATFs have a higher expression level in the period when female A. suturalis release sex pheromones.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These data constitutes the first transcriptomic analysis exploring the repertoire of genes expressed in insect MTGs. We identified a large number of potential pheromone biosynthetic pathway genes. In this context, our study provides an invaluable resource for future exploration of molecular mechanisms of pheromone biosynthesis in A. suturalis, as well as other hemipteran species.
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: College of Plant Protection, Huazhong Agricultural University, Zhenzhou 450002, China.
authors.forename: Xiangyang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Lang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Poyao
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Longjia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Qiao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China; State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Beijing 100193, China. Electronic address: lzchen@mail.hzau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Lizhen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.
authors.forename: Chaoliang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lei
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D053898:Biosynthetic Pathways / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D017344:Genes, Insect / Q000235:genetics; D020062:Heteroptera / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D010675:Pheromones / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012543:Scent Glands / Q000378:metabolism*; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D019476:Insect Proteins; D010675:Pheromones
keywords: Adelphocoris suturalis Jakovlev; Metathoracic scent glands; Pheromone biosynthesis; Transcriptome