The Characteristics of Chemosensory and Opsin Genes in Newly Emerged and Sexually Mature , an Important Quarantine Forest Beetle.

The emerald ash borer (EAB), , is a highly destructive quarantine pest. The olfactory and visual systems of play different but critical roles at newly emerged and sexually mature stages; however, the molecular basis underlying these differences remain unclear. Consequently, based on deep transcriptome sequencing, we evaluated the expression levels of chemosensory-related proteins and opsins at the two developmental stages of . We found 15 new chemosensory-related genes in our transcriptome assembly compared with the previous genome assembly, including 6 that code for odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) and 9 for chemosensory proteins (CSPs). The expression of several chemosensory-related genes (, and ) differed markedly between newly emerged and sexually mature . We also found that the expression of and was higher in sexually mature male , which may be associated with their strong visual mate detection ability. This study forms the basis for further investigation of the chemosensory and visual system of , and these differentially expressed genes between newly emerged and sexually mature stages may serve as targets for the management of this destructive forest pest after sexual maturity.