Genome sequence of the English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae and its endosymbiont Buchnera aphidicola

Abstract

The English grain aphid, Sitobion avenae, is a major agricultural pest of wheat, barley and oats, and one of the principal vectors of Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) leading to significant reductions in grain yield, annually. Emerging resistance to and increasing regulation of insecticides has resulted in limited options for their control. Using PacBio HiFi data, we have produced a high quality draft assembly of the S. avenae genome; generating a primary assembly with a total assembly size of 475.7 Mb, and an alternate assembly with a total assembly size of 430.8 Mb. Our primary assembly was highly contiguous with only 326 contigs and a contig N50 of 15.95 Mb. Assembly completeness was estimated at 97.7% using BUSCO analysis and 31,007 and 29,037 protein-coding genes were predicted from the primary and alternate assemblies, respectively. This assembly, which is to our knowledge the first for an insecticide resistant clonal lineage of English grain aphid, will provide novel insight into the molecular and mechanistic determinants of resistance and will facilitate future research into mechanisms of viral transmission and aphid behavior.