State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Green Pesticide and Agricultural Bioengineering, Key Laboratory of Green Pesticide and Agricultural Bioengineering, Ministry of Education, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China.
Institute of Entomology, Guizhou University, Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory for Agricultural Pest Management of the Mountainous Region, Scientific Observing and Experiment Station of Crop Pest Guiyang, Ministry of Agriculture, Guiyang 550025, China.
Toxins (Basel). 2022 Aug 21;14(8):571. doi: 10.3390/toxins14080571.
Yu, Zhang & He (Prostigmata: Pyemotidae), discovered in China, has been demonstrated as a high-efficient natural enemy in controlling many agricultural and forestry pests. This mite injects toxins into the host (eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults), resulting in its paralyzation and then gets nourishment for reproductive development. These toxins have been approved to be mammal-safe, which have the potential to be used as biocontrol pesticides. Toxin proteins have been identified from many insects, especially those from the orders Scorpions and Araneae, some of which are now widely used as efficient biocontrol pesticides. However, toxin proteins in mites are not yet understood. In this study, we assembled the genome of using PacBio technology and then identified toxin-related genes that are likely to be responsible for the paralytic process of . The genome assembly has a size of 71.943 Mb, including 20 contigs with a N50 length of 21.248 Mb and a BUSCO completeness ratio of 90.6% (n = 1367). These contigs were subsequently assigned to three chromosomes. There were 11,183 protein coding genes annotated, which were assessed with 91.2% BUSCO completeness (n = 1066). Neurotoxin and dermonecrotic toxin gene families were significantly expanded within the genus of and they also formed several gene clusters on the chromosomes. Most of the genes from these two families and all of the three agatoxin genes were shown with higher expression in the one-day-old mites compared to the seven-day-pregnant mites, supporting that the one-day-old mites cause paralyzation and even death of the host. The identification of these toxin proteins may provide insights into how to improve the parasitism efficiency of this mite, and the purification of these proteins may be used to develop new biological pesticides.
中国发现的 Yu, Zhang & He（ Prostigmata: Pyemotidae），已被证明是控制许多农林害虫的高效天敌。这种螨虫会向宿主（卵、幼虫、蛹和成虫）注射毒素，导致其瘫痪，然后为繁殖发育获取营养。这些毒素已被证明对哺乳动物是安全的，有可能被用作生物防治农药。已经从许多昆虫中鉴定出毒素蛋白，特别是蝎子目和蜘蛛目昆虫，其中一些现在被广泛用作高效生物防治农药。然而，螨虫中的毒素蛋白还没有被了解。在这项研究中，我们使用 PacBio 技术组装了 的基因组，然后鉴定了可能负责 的瘫痪过程的毒素相关基因。基因组组装大小为 71.943 Mb，包括 20 个 contigs，N50 长度为 21.248 Mb，BUSCO 完整性比率为 90.6%（n = 1367）。这些 contigs随后被分配到三个染色体上。注释了 11183 个蛋白质编码基因，这些基因的 BUSCO 完整性评估为 91.2%（n = 1066）。神经毒素和真皮坏死毒素基因家族在 Pyemotes 属中显著扩张，它们在染色体上也形成了几个基因簇。这两个家族的大多数基因和所有三个 agatoxin 基因在一天龄螨虫中的表达都明显高于七天龄怀孕螨虫，这表明一天龄螨虫导致宿主瘫痪甚至死亡。这些毒素蛋白的鉴定可能为如何提高这种螨虫的寄生效率提供了一些思路，并且这些蛋白的纯化可能被用于开发新的生物农药。
