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Title: GENE EXPRESSION IN THE ASIAN CITRUS PSYLLID: VECTOR OF CITRUS GREENING (HEMIPTERA: PSYLLIDAE)

Author
item Hunter, Wayne
item Katsar, Catherine
item McKenzie, Cindy
item Shatters, Robert - Bob
item Weathersbee Iii, Albert
item Hall, David

Submitted to: Florida Entomological Society Annual Meeting
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/20/2006
Publication Date: 7/24/2006
Citation: Hunter, W.B., Katsar, C.S., McKenzie, C.L., Shatters, R.G., Weathersbee III, A.A., Hall, D.G. 2006. Gene expression in the Asian Citrus Psyllid: Vector of Citrus Greening (Hemiptera: Psyllidae [abstract]. Joint Proceedings of the 89th Annual meeting and 6th International Caribbean Conference of the Florida Entomologtical Society. Paper No. DSP-10.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Production of a unigene set identified the putative functions of over 500 transcripts from the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri Kuwayama (Hemiptera: Psyllidae). D. citri is the primary vector of Huanglongbing, HLB, which is a severe plant pathogenic bacterium that causes severe economic losses in citrus. To better understand the biology and pathogen relationships, particularly those genes functioning in: feeding, disease transmission, and the development of insecticide resistance, we undertook a large-scale 5' end sequencing project of cDNA clones from adult psyllids. Similar expressed sequence tag (EST) projects from other insects have provided the vehicle for answering important biological questions. Although there is a growing database in GenBank of ESTs from other insects, relatively few genes have been isolated from psyllids. We produced the first public data set of ESTs from the psyllid, D. citri. Over 5,906 cDNA clones were sequenced, resulting in 4,445 high-quality D. citri ESTs. Sequence alignment of the cDNAs resulted in 2,123 total assembled sequences, including both contiguous sequences and singlets. The putative protein transcript of each assembled sequence was annotated based on the biochemical function of matching gene sequences using BLASTX, TBLASTX, and BLASTN analyses, GenBank, nr ESTdb. The subsequent unigene set produced 517 sequences which had significant identities with homologous genes in the GenBank’s database. The remaining 63% of the cDNA’s showed ‘no significant match’ in either the non-redundant protein or nucleic acid databases, demonstrating that de novo EST sequencing projects still provide new information to the scientific community. The D. citri gene expression data set advances current research efforts in the identification of genes and physiological processes of psyllids, of which a number of species are of economic importance. Knowledge of these genes and proteins now enable functional genomic studies to be conducted, with focus on the development of new management strategies against psyllids and other hemipterans.