Fraxinus pennsylvanica, EAB-infested
Fraxinus pennsylvanica Transcriptome or Gene expression
At present, North American ash species (genus Fraxinus) are under attack by Emerald Ash Borer (Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire; Coleoptera: Buprestidae; EAB), an aggressive, invasive insect native to Southeast Asia, while native Asian ash species are comparatively resistant to this phloem-feeding insect. Relatively little research has been done, to date, to determine the basis for susceptibility of North American ash species to EAB. It is possible that Asian species are resistant because of one or more genes they express. The objective of this research was to compare transcriptome profiles of EAB-infested and uninfested control North American green ash trees (F. pennsylvanica) in order to better understand the mechanism(s) by which insect feeding acts on putative defense pathways in an EAB-susceptible tree. Following a field experiment, bark-tissue samples were harvested and RNA extracted for transcriptomic profiling via 454 high-throughput sequencing to compare gene-expression profiles of infested and uninfested green ash trees.