Providing genetic tools to the development of specific control strategies to the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus sp1, using a transcriptome approach

CONTE CLAUDIA; MILLA FABIAN; LANZAVECCHIA SILVIA; SCANNAPIECO ALEJANDRA; RIVAROLA MAXIMO; CLADERA JORGE; WULFF, JUAN PEDRO; MUNTAABSKI IRINA

Bogota

Congreso; Americas Congress on Fruit Flies and the 10th Meeting of Tephritids Workers of the Western Hemisphere; 2020

Entomological Society of America

The American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus Wiedemann (Diptera: Tephritidae) is an important agricultural pest in the New World. The lack of environmentally friendly control strategies against this species reinforces the search for genes potentially useful for their genetic control. We generated RNA-seq libraries from whole-body samples of A. fratercuclus sp.1, including two different developmental stages (sexually-mature adults of both sexes and 72 h embryos). Our analyses indicate that the de novo transcriptome assembly is fairly complete (63% complete BUSCO orthologs detected) with a total of 86925 transcripts assembled and 28756 GO annotated sequences. A number of contrasting expressed transcripts were detected in paired comparisons between libraries (286 embryos/adults and 204 males/females). RNA-seq analysis allowed the identification and annotation of transcripts through GO and/or Blast search, then their expression profiles were assessed by qRT-PCR. We analyzed transcripts highly represented in embryos as those corresponding to a heat shock protein (hsp27), transformer 2 and serendipity α. We also identified transcripts presumably differentially expressed between sexually-mature adults involved in courtship behavior and reproduction. Specifically, we analyzed an odorant-binding protein (obp50a1), takeout protein (to) and transcripts associated to physiological pathways (androgen-induced protein and maltase 2 like protein). Furthermore, the transcriptome assembly here described enabled the identification of 14262 microsatellite motifs potentially useful for population genetics studies and linkage analysis of genomic regions of interest. In sum, our study contributes with a set of candidate genes that are possibly involved in early developmental pathways and reproduction in this insect species of economic importance. We discussed our results considering their contribution to explore behavioral and physiological mechanisms in early developmental stages and adults, including new molecular markers potentially useful to the development of genetic control strategies against this important pest species.