title: Cys-loop ligand-gated ion channel gene discovery in the Locusta migratoria manilensis through the neuron transcriptome.
abstract: As an ideal model, Locusta migratoria manilensis (Meyen) has been widely used in the study of endocrinological and neurobiological processes. Here we created a large transcriptome of the locust neurons, which enriched ion channels whose potential for functional genetic experiments is currently limited. With high-throughput Illumina sequencing technology, we obtained more than 50 million raw reads, which were assembled into 61,056 unique sequences with average size of 737bp. Among the unigenes, a total 24,884 sequences had significant similarities with proteins in the five public databases (NR, SwissProt, GO, COG and KEGG) with a cut-off E-value of 10(-5) using BLASTx. Moreover, the number of potential genes of the cys-loop ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs) was manually curated, including 39 putative nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), 6 putative γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) gated anion channels, 21 putative glutamate-gated chloride channels (GluCls) and 1 histamine-gated chloride channels (HisCls). In addition, the full-length of 11 nAChRs subunits (9 alpha and 2 beta) were obtained by RACE technique that would be helpful to further studies on nAChR neurochemistry and pharmacological aspects. To our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize the locust neuron transcriptome, which will provide a useful resource especially for future studies on the neuro-function and behavior of the locust.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests (Ministry of Education), College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, PR China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests (Ministry of Education), College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiangkun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests (Ministry of Education), College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, PR China.
authors.forename: Chuanjun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests (Ministry of Education), College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, PR China.
authors.forename: Hongli
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests (Ministry of Education), College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, PR China. Electronic address: zhangyixi@njau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yixi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Crop Diseases and Pests (Ministry of Education), College of Plant Protection, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, PR China. Electronic address: liuzewen@njau.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zewen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D058466:Cysteine Loop Ligand-Gated Ion Channel Receptors / Q000235:genetics*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D048188:Locusta migratoria / Q000235:genetics*; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism*; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D058466:Cysteine Loop Ligand-Gated Ion Channel Receptors; D019476:Insect Proteins
keywords: Ligand-gated ion channel genes; Locust neurons; Transcriptome; nAChR subunits