Department of Biological Sciences, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL 60616, USA.
USDA-ARS, Corn Insects & Crop Genetics Research Unit, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
G3 (Bethesda). 2022 Apr 4;12(4). doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkac052.
Diabrocite corn rootworms are one of the most economically significant pests of maize in the United States and Europe and an emerging model for insect-plant interactions. Genome sizes of several species in the genus Diabrotica were estimated using flow cytometry along with that of Acalymma vittatum as an outgroup. Genome sizes ranged between 1.56 and 1.64 gigabase pairs and between 2.26 and 2.59 Gb, respectively, for the Diabrotica subgroups fucata and virgifera; the Acalymma vittatum genome size was around 1.65 Gb. This result indicated that a substantial increase in genome size occurred in the ancestor of the virgifera group. Further analysis of the fucata group and the virgifera group genome sequencing reads indicated that the genome size difference between the Diabrotica subgroups could be attributed to a higher content of transposable elements, mostly miniature inverted-transposable elements and gypsy-like long terminal repeat retroelements.
白纹玉米根萤叶甲是美国和欧洲玉米上最重要的经济害虫之一，也是昆虫-植物相互作用的新兴模式生物。本研究使用流式细胞术对几个玉米根萤叶甲属物种的基因组大小进行了估计，并以 Acalymma vittatum 作为外群。fucata 和 virgifera 两个亚组的基因组大小分别在 1.56 到 1.64 吉碱基对和 2.26 到 2.59 吉碱基对之间；Acalymma vittatum 的基因组大小约为 1.65 吉碱基对。这一结果表明，virgifera 组的祖先发生了大量的基因组大小增加。对 fucata 组和 virgifera 组基因组测序reads 的进一步分析表明，玉米根萤叶甲亚组之间的基因组大小差异可归因于转座元件含量较高，主要是微型倒置转座元件和类似 gypsy 的长末端重复 retroelements。
