Whole genome sequencing of Asia II 1 species of whitefly reveals that genes involved in virus transmission and insecticide resistance have genetic variances between Asia II 1 and MEAM1 species

Authors: HUSSAIN, SONIA - National Institute Of Biotechnology And Genetic Engineering (NIBGE); FAROOQ, MUHAMMAD - National Institute Of Biotechnology And Genetic Engineering (NIBGE); MALIK, HASSAN JAMIL - National Institute Of Biotechnology And Genetic Engineering (NIBGE); AMIN, IMRAN - National Institute Of Biotechnology And Genetic Engineering (NIBGE); Scheffler, Brian; Scheffler, Jodi; LIU, SHU-SHENG - Zhejiang University; MANSOOR, SHAHID - National Institute Of Biotechnology And Genetic Engineering (NIBGE)

Submitted to: BMC Genomics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/31/2019
Publication Date: 6/18/2019
Citation: Hussain, S., Farooq, M., Malik, H., Amin, I., Scheffler, B.E., Scheffler, J.A., Liu, S., Mansoor, S. 2019. Whole genome sequencing of Asia II 1 species of whitefly reveals that genes involved in virus transmission and insecticide resistance have genetic variances between Asia II 1 and MEAM1 species. BMC Genomics. 20:507. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-019-5877-9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-019-5877-9

Interpretive Summary: Bemisia tabaci, commonly known as ‘whiteflies’, are sap sucking pests that can infest as many as 1000 plant species. They damage their plant hosts by infestation as well as by transmitting plant viruses. These whiteflies can potentially vector over 300 plant viruses and affect cotton, cassava, tomato, sweet potato, cucurbits and many other crop plant species. Through DNA analysis is was discovered that whiteflies consist of a group of similar appearing species with subtle differences in their ability to transmit viruses and their preferred plant species host. This study compared the DNA sequences of two visually indistinguishable, but genetically distinct whitefly types. Comparison of the sequences detected several variations that were in genes associated with virus transmission efficiency and insecticide resistance. These results provide new knowledge with which to develop novel strategies and technologies to manage whitefly pests and the viral disease agents they vector.

Technical Abstract: Whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci) are phloem sap-sucking pests that because of their broad host range and ability to transmit viruses damage crop plants worldwide. B. tabaci are now known to be a complex of cryptic species that differ from each other in many characteristics such as mode of interaction with viruses, invasiveness, and resistance to insecticides. Asia II 1 is an indigenous species found on the Indian sub-continent and south-east Asia while the species named as Middle East Asia Minor 1 (MEAM1) likely originated from the Middle-East and has spread worldwide in recent decades. Sequencing of the nuclear genome of Asia II 1 with Illumina HiSeq and MiSeq generated 198.90 million reads that covered 88% of the reference genome. The sequence comparison with MEAM1 identified 2,327,972 SNPs and 202,479 INDELs. In total, 1294 genes were detected with high impact variants. The functional analysis revealed that some of the genes are involved in virus transmission including 4 genes in Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) transmission, 96 in Tomato crinivirus (ToCV) transmission, and 14 genes in insecticide resistance. These genetic differences between Asia II 1 and MEAM1 may underlie the major biological differences between the two species such as virus transmission, insecticide resistance, and range of host plants. This present study provides new genomic data and information resources for Asia II 1 that will not only contribute to the species delimitation of whitefly, but also help in conceiving future research studies to help develop more targeted management strategies against whitefly.