In moths, mating behavior is induced by sex pheromones released by the female being recognized by the males’s chemosensory systems. In this study, to understand the recognition of sex pheromones in Maruca vitrata, chemosensory genes were identified via transcriptome analysis of male and female antennae and heads. Approximately, 11.1Gb, 10.8Gb, 12.1Gb, and 11.6Gb of data were obtained from the antennae and heads of the male and female, respectively. Thirty-seven odorant binding proteins (OBPs), 21 chemosensory proteins, 7 sensory neuron membrane proteins, 102 odorant receptors (ORs), 36 ionotropic receptors, and 39 gustatory Receptors were identified as chemosensory genes from the M. vitrata. Among these genes, 5 OBPs and 4 ORs were specifically expressed in male antennae. These genes are likely to be involved in the sex pheromone recognition of M. vitrata.

The ascomycete fungus Cordyceps militaris infects lepidopteran insect pupae, forming characteristic fruiting bodies called “Dong Chung Ha Cho” in Korean. They have been used as medicines owing to their anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, and immune-enhancing effects. This fungus can be grown on the geminated soybeans Rhynchosia nulubilis, which also contains several novel isoflavones. We performed a comparative transcriptome analysis to determine core gene sets or pathways contributing to biologically active products such as isoflavone. Initially, we sequenced 2-week-old fungal cultures on different soybean agar media, where different amounts of water agar were implemented to show different surface topology. We selected 830 upregulated and 188 downregulated genes by comparing linear models of the samples (two-fold change threshold). Gene ontology analysis identified that the “IMP biosynthesis” term was significantly found in the upregulated gene sets. The pathway is involved in the synthesis of cordycepin, the reference chemical for C. militaris. This finding in the transcriptome data is consistent with the previous observation: increased cordycepin concentrations in the C. militaris cultured on germinated soybean.

The Asian honeybee, Apis cerana, is a native honeybee species in Korea which is important in agriculture for pollination and honey production. For better understanding of the physiology of A. cerana, high-throughput Illumina transcriptome sequencing was performed to analyze the gene expression profiles of queen, worker and larva. A total of 219,799,682 clean reads corresponding to 22.2Gb of nucleotide sequences was obtained from the whole body total RNA samples. The Apis mellifera reference mRNA sequence database was used to measure the gene expression level with Bowtie2 and eXpress software and the Illumina short reads were mapped to 11,459 out of 11,736 A. mellifera reference genes. Total of 9,221 genes with FPKM value greater than 5 of each sample group were subjected to evolutionary genealogy of genes: Non-supervised Orthologous Groups (eggNOG) with BLASTX for gene ontology analysis. The differential gene expression between queen and worker, and worker and larva were analyzed to screen the overexpressed genes in each sample group. in the queen and worker sample group, total of 1,766 genes were differentially expressed with 887 and 879 genes overexpressed over two folds in queen and worker, respectively. In the worker and larva sample group, total of 1,410 genes were differentially expressed with 1,009 and 401 genes overexpressed over two folds in worker and larva, respectively.

Rice stripe virus (RSV) is one of the serious plant pathogenic viruses for rice and mediated by small brown planthopper, Laodalphax striatellus. So far, the studies have been mainly focused on the interaction between the host plant and the virus. In this study, for better comprehension of the interactions among Rice stripe virus, rice and small brown planthopper, transcriptomes of the RSV-viruliferous (RVLS) and non-viruliferous L. striatellus (NVLS) were comparatively analysed. For this, non-viruliferous L. striatellus were collected from non-infected rice field and fed RSV-infected rice for 5 days. With the RNAs prepared from the RSV-viruliferous and the non-viruliferous small brown planthoppers, we conducted Illumina RNA sequencing (Hiseq 2000) and then two transcriptome databases were generated from RVLS and NVLS, respectively. The transcriptome of RVLS and NVLS were campared to figure out how the gene expression of the insects affected by Rice Stripe Virus. RSV-dependently regulated genes analysed from this study may have important functions in the transmission and replication of RSV.

To investigate genes differentially expressed in the venom of social and solitary wasps, a comparative transcriptome analysis was conducted. Subtractive expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries specific to the venom gland and sac (gland/sac) of a social wasp species, Vespa tropica and a solitary hunting wasp species, Rhynchium brunneum, was constructed by suppression subtractive hybridization. In BLASTx analysis, 41% and 56% of the total ESTs showed statistically best-matched hits (E ≤ 10-4) in the libraries of V. tropica and R. brunneum, respectively. Although the functional category analysis did not show remarkable differences in the distribution of functional categories between the two venom gland/sac cDNA libraries, perhaps due to the lack of functional information on many of the venom components, there were groups of genes that are specific to either V. tropica or R. brunneum. Venom allergen 5 and serine protease were found to be social wasp-specific venom transcripts. In contrast, venom peptides, metalloendopeptidases, arginine kinase and dendrotoxin were observed in solitary wasp at much higher frequencies.

The oriental fruit moth (Grapholita molesta) and the plum fruit moth (G. dimorpha) are internal feeders of apples. Their sympatric and similar sex pheromone compositions suggest their recent divergence in speciation. This study aims to determine genetic factors in this speciation by comparing transcriptomes associated in sex pheromone biosynthesis in these sibling species. Total RNAs were collected two female abodominal tips and read by a short read deep sequencing technology using an lllumina HiSeq. Almost 3-4 Gb reads were de novo assembled and resulted in 76,361 contigs of G. dimorpha and 104,463 contigs of G. molesta. More than 70% of these contigs were annotated and classified by a typical GO analysis. Transcriptomes related with sex pheromone biosynthesis were selected and grouped into fatty acid synthase, fatty acid oxidation. These analyses identified sex pheromone biosynthesis machineries

The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii (Glover), is one of the most serious pest in seed potato and various vegetable cultivation. The imidacloprid-resistant strain (IR) was over 200-fold more resistant to imidacloprid compared to a susceptible strain (S) as judged by LC50 values. The IR showed cross resistances to other neonicotinoid insecticides. IEF and 2DE analyses revealed that general esterase isozyme patterns in IR were almost identical to those of S. Nevertheless, a significantly overexpressed protein spot was detected in IR. To identify differentially expressed genes in IR, comparative transcriptome analyses based on GS-FLX were conducted using total RNAs extracted from both IR and S strains, which generated ca. 290 Mb reads for each strain. Generally, most nicotinic acetylcholine receptor subunit genes, such as alpha 2 and beta 1, were more transcribed in S than in IR. In contrast, only alpha 5 subunit gene was 1.8 fold more expressed in IR. Seven ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter genes were newly identified in A. gossypii, among which only ABCC9 gene was highly expressed in IR. Therefore, this ABCC subfamily, a member of the MRP subfamily which is involved in multi-drug resistance, could be one of the main factors associated with imidacloprid resistance in A. gossypii.

Arsenic (As) is accumulated in rice grain due to environmental reasons such as polluted ground water and soil, and As toxicity constitutes a serious threat to human health. However, the accurate information required for understanding As-responsive mechanisms remain mostly unknown in rice. Here, we performed the comparative genome-wide transcriptome analysis between As tolerance type (ATT) rice mutant induced by γ-irradiation and its wild type (WT). As compared to WT after As treatment of 150 ppm, ATT exhibited the phenotypic differences such as vigorous growth in shoots and root hairs, and low accumulation of H2O2 in rice roots. In transcriptome analysis, we found between WT and ATT that As toxicity commonly affected to inhibit gene regulations involved in photosynthesis, mitochondrial electron transport and lipid biosynthesis metabolism. While, many genes associated with cysteine synthesis metabolism considerably up regulated in both As-treated plants. Additionally, we found the potential As tolerance-related genes involved in abiotic stress-responsive mechanism and RNA-protein synthesis for protein degradation and modification. To further analyzes the genetic variations of As-responsive genes, the DNA polymorphic DEGs associated with oxidoreductase significantly distributed in ATT more than in WT.

Low temperature stress is one of the major negative factors affecting vegetative and reproductive growth of rice. To better understand responses of rice plants to low temperature we analyzed transcriptome expression patterns in glumous flower of cold-tolerant japonica rice variety, Stejaree45, and cold-susceptible variety, HR19621-AC6 at booting stage under cold water irrigation. A total of 2,411 probes were differentially expressed by low temperature in glumous flowers of the two varieties. Some important genes involved in hormone biosynthesis showed variety-specific regulation. Expression of GA20ox3 and GA2ox, among the genes involved in GA biosynthesis, was regulated differentially in the two varieties. Among the genes involved in IAA biosynthesis, YUCCA1 and TAA1:1 showed variety-specific regulation. Among the genes involved in cytokinin biosynthsis and signaling, expression of LOG, HK1 and HK3 was significantly down-regulated only in the cold-susceptible variety. Among the genes involved in ABA biosynthesis, NSY and AAO3 were down-regulated only in the cold-tolerant variety. In general, genes involved in GA, IAA and cytokinin biosynthesis responded to cold temperature in such a way that capacity of those bioactive hormones is maintained at relatively higher levels under cold temperature in the cold-tolerant variety, which can help minimize cold stress imposed to developing reproductive organs in the cold-tolerant variety.