Early embryonic transcriptomes of Zeugodacus tau provide insight into sex determination and differentiation genes

作者：Peipei Liu, Wenping Zheng, Jiao Qiao, Ziniu Li, Zhurong Deng, Yimin Yuan, Hongyu Zhang · 发表于：Insect Science · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1111/1744-7917.12974 · 被引用次数：17 · 研究领域：Genetic and Clinical Aspects of Sex Determination and Chromosomal Abnormalities、Insect-Plant Interactions and Control、Insect symbiosis and bacterial influences

Zeugodacus tau (Walker) is an invasive pest. The sterile insect technique is an environment-friendly method for pest control. Understanding the mechanism of sex determination will contribute to improving efficiency of this technique. In this study, we identified the transformer (tra) gene in Z. tau. One female-specific and two male-specific isoforms of tra were found in Z. tau, and the male-specific splicing pattern of tra was found to occur 5 h after egg laying. We performed transcriptome sequencing at 1 h (E1), 5 h (E5), and 9 h (E9) after egg laying and obtained high-quality transcriptome libraries of early embryo development. We identified 13 297 and 11 713 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from E5 versus E1 and E9 versus E1 comparisons, respectively. To explore the potential functions of the DEGs during embryonic development, Gene Ontology, Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses were performed. Twenty-six genes potentially involved in sex determination or differentiation, including Maleness-on-the-Y (MoY), were identified in Z. tau. To verify the transcriptome results, 15 genes were selected for quantitative real-time PCR validation. The results were consistent with the transcriptome sequencing results. Moreover, U2 small nuclear riboprotein auxiliary factor (U2AF-50), female lethal d (fl(2)d), and virilizer (vir) were highly expressed at E5, indicating that they may be related to the sex-specific splicing of ...