Comparative transcriptomics and proteomics of three different aphid species identifies core and diverse effector sets
Date
02/03/2016Metadata
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Aphids are phloem-feeding insects that cause significant economic losses to agriculture worldwide. While feeding and probing these insects deliver molecules, called effectors, inside their host to enable infestation. The identification and characterization of these effectors from different species that vary in their host range is an important step in understanding the infestation success of aphids and aphid host range variation. This study employs a multi-disciplinary approach based on transcriptome sequencing and proteomics to identify and compare effector candidates from the broad host range aphid Myzus persicae (green peach aphid) (genotypes O, J and F), and narrow host range aphids Myzus cerasi (black cherry aphid) and Rhopalosiphum padi (bird-cherry oat aphid). RESULTS: Using a combination of aphid transcriptome sequencing on libraries derived from head versus body tissues as well as saliva proteomics we were able to predict candidate effectors repertoires from the different aphid species and genotypes. Among the identified conserved or core effector sets, we identified a significant number of previously identified aphid candidate effectors indicating these proteins may be involved in general infestation strategies. Moreover, we identified aphid candidate effector sequences that were specific to one species, which are interesting candidates for further validation and characterization with regards to species-specific functions during infestation. We assessed our candidate effector repertoires for evidence of positive selection, and identified 49 candidates with DN/DS ratios >1. We noted higher rates of DN/DS ratios in predicted aphid effectors than non-effectors. Whether this reflects positive selection due to co-evolution with host plants, or increased neofunctionalization upon gene duplication remains to be investigated. CONCLUSION: Our work provides a comprehensive overview of the candidate effector repertoires from three different aphid species with varying host ranges. Comparative analyses revealed candidate effectors that are most likely are involved in general aspects of infestation, whereas others, that are highly divergent, may be involved in specific processes important for certain aphid species. Insights into the overlap and differences in aphid effector repertoires are important in understanding how different species successfully infest different ranges of plant species.
Citation
Thorpe , P , Cock , P J A & Bos , J 2016 , ' Comparative transcriptomics and proteomics of three different aphid species identifies core and diverse effector sets ' , BMC Genomics , vol. 17 , 172 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-016-2496-6
Publication
BMC Genomics
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1471-2164Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 Thorpe et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Description
This work was supported by ERC Starting Grant 310190-APHIDHOST and a Royal Society of Edinburgh Personal Fellowship awarded to JB.Collections
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