Wohlfahrtia magnifica Transcriptome or Gene expression
Myiasis caused by W. magnifica in mammals is a widespread parasitic infectious disease. The infected host can suffer from damages as the developing larvae feed on its tissues to grow. For the control of myiasis infestation, genetic methods have been shown to be effective and promising as an alternative to insecticides. Combining isoform sequencing (Iso-Seq) and RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data, we isolated and characterized two sex-determination genes, W. magnifica transformer (Wmtra) and W. magnifica transformer2 (Wmtra2), whose orthologs have been utilized to develop genetic control approaches in a number of insect pests.Within the female-specific gene set from the transcriptome profiling performed between adult female and adult male W. magnifica, we detected five candidate genes innexin5 (inx5), vasa(vas), nanos (nanos), bicoid (bcd) and Bicaudal C (BicC), whose promoters can drive cas9 expression in the germline in Cas9-based gene-drive systems as illustrated in Diptera. The isolation and characterization of these genes is an important step toward the development of genetic control programs against W. magnifica infestation.