CHARACTERIZATION AND BIOINFORMATIC ANALYSIS OF MICRORNAS IN DELTAMETHRIN-RESISTANT AND SUSCEPTIBLE POPULATION OF THE CHAGAS DISEASE VECTOR TRIATOMA INFESTANS

MARTA GEORGINA NICOLINO; LOURDES EUGENIA CÓRDOBA; BEATRIZ ALICIA GARCÍA; ORNELLA ALESSANDRONI; CINTIA JUDITH FERNÁNDEZ; MARÍA MERCEDES STROPPPA; ANTONIO GARZÓN; ALICIA RAQUEL PÉREZ DE ROSAS

Congreso; LX Annual Meeting of the Argentine Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Research (SAIB); 2024

Triatoma infestans is the main vector of Chagas disease in South America. Failures in vector control have been observed due to the development of insecticide resistance. Recent publications have evidenced the involvement of microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating the expression of genes involved in insecticide resistance in other insect species. With the aim of elucidating the involvement of miRNAs in pyrethroid resistance in T. infestans, it was proposed the first large-scale characterization of miRNAs expressed in a susceptible and a deltamethrin-resistant population and the identification of those miRNAs that are differentially expressed. Total RNA was extracted from fifth instar nymphs? fat bodies and was sent to the specialized miRNA sequencing service of ArrayStar (USA). The sequencing was performed in three biological replicates from each population. The bioinformatics analysis were carried out following the bases of nf-core/smrnaseq pipeline, employing tools to process the reads, identify and predict novel miRNAs (Softwares: FasTQC, Cutadapt, Bowtie2 and miRDeep2). Subsequently, the differential expression of miRNAs between populations was determined using the Empirical Differential Gene Expression Analysis (EDGE) algorithm, with R (version 4.4.1) as the development environment. A total of 110 miRNAs, previously characterized in Arthropoda, were identified by the miRDeep2 software and 66 novel miRNAs were predicted. The results showed significant differences in the expression of seven miRNAs. Among them, six are significantly overexpressed in the pyrethroid-resistant population, suggesting their potential role in regulating genes involved in metabolic resistance to insecticides, reproduction, cuticle synthesis and the metabolic-reproductive adaptative cost associated with the development of insecticide resistance. The identification of differentially expressed miRNAs in pyrethroid-susceptible and -resistant populations of T. infestans may contribute to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in insecticide resistance.