Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, Agriculture Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2012;7(2):e31828. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0031828. Epub 2012 Feb 27.
Nylanderia pubens (Forel) is an invasive ant species that in recent years has developed into a serious nuisance problem in the Caribbean and United States. A rapidly expanding range, explosive localized population growth, and control difficulties have elevated this ant to pest status. Professional entomologists and the pest control industry in the United States are urgently trying to understand its biology and develop effective control methods. Currently, no known biological-based control agents are available for use in controlling N. pubens.
Metagenomics and pyrosequencing techniques were employed to examine the transcriptome of field-collected N. pubens colonies in an effort to identify virus infections with potential to serve as control agents against this pest ant. Pyrosequencing (454-platform) of a non-normalized N. pubens expression library generated 1,306,177 raw sequence reads comprising 450 Mbp. Assembly resulted in generation of 59,017 non-redundant sequences, including 27,348 contigs and 31,669 singlets. BLAST analysis of these non-redundant sequences identified 51 of potential viral origin. Additional analyses winnowed this list of potential viruses to three that appear to replicate in N. pubens.
Pyrosequencing the transcriptome of field-collected samples of N. pubens has identified at least three sequences that are likely of viral origin and, in which, N. pubens serves as host. In addition, the N. pubens transcriptome provides a genetic resource for the scientific community which is especially important at this early stage of developing a knowledgebase for this new pest.
Nylanderia pubens (Forel) 是一种入侵性蚂蚁物种,近年来已成为加勒比海和美国严重的滋扰问题。其分布范围迅速扩大、局部种群爆炸性增长以及控制困难,使这种蚂蚁上升为害虫地位。美国专业昆虫学家和害虫控制行业正急于了解其生物学特性并开发有效的控制方法。目前,尚无已知的基于生物学的控制剂可用于控制 N. pubens。
采用宏基因组学和焦磷酸测序技术,研究野外采集的 N. pubens 群体的转录组,以期鉴定具有作为控制剂潜力的病毒感染,以对抗这种害虫蚂蚁。对野外采集的 N. pubens 非标准化表达文库进行焦磷酸测序(454 平台),生成了 1,306,177 条原始序列读长,包含 450 Mbp。组装产生了 59,017 条非冗余序列,包括 27,348 个重叠群和 31,669 个单序列。对这些非冗余序列进行 BLAST 分析,鉴定出 51 种潜在的病毒来源。进一步的分析将潜在病毒的清单缩小到三种,它们似乎在 N. pubens 中复制。
对野外采集的 N. pubens 样本的转录组进行焦磷酸测序,至少鉴定出三种可能源自病毒的序列,其中 N. pubens 作为宿主。此外,N. pubens 转录组为科学界提供了一个遗传资源,这在为这个新害虫建立知识库的早期阶段尤为重要。