Skip to main content
ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Hilo, Hawaii » Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center » Tropical Crop and Commodity Protection Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #316754
Title: Transcriptome of the egg parasitoid Fopius arisanus, an important biocontrol tool for Tephritid fruit fly suppression

Author
item Calla, Bernarda
item SIM, SHEINA - University Of Hawaii
item HALL, BRIAN - University Of Hawaii
item DEREGO, THEODORE - University Of Hawaii
item LIANG, GUANG HONG - Fuijan Agricultural University
item Geib, Scott

Submitted to: Gigascience
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/27/2015
Publication Date: 8/4/2015
Citation: Calla Zalles, B., Sim, S., Hall, B., Derego, T., Liang, G., Geib, S.M. 2015. Transcriptome of the egg parasitoid Fopius arisanus, an important biocontrol tool for Tephritid fruit fly suppression. Gigascience. 4:36. DOI:10.1186/s13742-015-0075-4.

Interpretive Summary: Fopius arisanus is a Braconid parasitoid wasp that uses several Tephritid fruit fly species as a host, including important pest species including the Mediterranean fruit fly and the oriental fruit fly. This wasp lays its eggs inside of the eggs of the host fly species, and the eggs subsequently grow and develop inside this host, while causing host mortality, resulting in an adult F. arisanus wasp emerging, rather than the host fly. Little is known about host-parasitoid interactions between these species, including topics like host finding and selection, mechanisms of overcoming host defenses, and the physiology and behavior in sex ratio maintenance in this haplodiploid species. In particular, there is virtually no characterization of genes or proteins for this species or any closely related Braconid. To contribute foundational knowledge of this species, a comprehensive transcriptome was generated across all major life stages (excluding eggs) utilizing a high-throughput sequencing technique called RNA-seq. This technique captures all transcripts expressed in a sample at a particular timepoint, and through pooling extractions and sequencing multiple libraries, a broad scope of expression across life history was obtained. The resulting dataset, consisting of over 15,000 novel transcripts was annotated with information about gene/protein function and homology to known proteins in related species. In addition, an orthology analysis between this species and 4 additional parasitoid species (in addition to honey bee, a model hymenopteran) revealed a set of approximately 4,000 genes which are present in all species, and appear to be core to hymenopteran parasitoids. This data was made publically available in NCBI (raw data, final transcriptome assembly and functional annotations) well as accessory data in GigaDB (expression abundance profiling, raw transcriptome assembly, orthology analysis) which is available for researchers to use as a foundation to future molecular, biochemical, and genetic studies in this and related parasitoid species.

Technical Abstract: Background The Braconoid wasp Fopius arisanus (Sonan) has been utilized for biological control of the Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata), and the oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis), both phytophagous fruit flies pest of economic importance in Hawaii. We have sequenced and assembled the transcriptome of this wasp using tissue from four different life stages: larvae, pupae, adult males and adult females with the aim of contribute to the understanding of the biology and behavior of this important parasitoid. Findings The transcriptome of the parasitic wasp Fopius arisanus was sequenced and reconstructed utilizing a strategy which allowed for the identification of 15,346 high-confidence, low-redundant transcripts. In addition, PFAM annotation was assigned for 78% of these transcripts. The distribution of transcript length is comparable to that found in other hymenoptera genomes. Through orthology analysis, 7,154 of the transcripts were identified as orthologs in F.arisanus when compared to 4 other hymenopteran parasitoids. Approximately 4,000 core orthologs were found to be shared between F.arisanus and the four other hymenopteran parasitoid species. Conclusions Availability of high quality genomic data is fundamental for the improvement and advancement of research in any biological organism. Parasitic wasps are important in biological control of agricultural pests and the transcriptome data presented here represents the first large scale molecular resource for this species or any closely related species. The assembly is available in NCBI for use by the scientific community with supporting data available through the GigaScience GigaDB database.