Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Bee Research Laboratory, USDA, 10300 Baltimore Avenue, Beltsville, MD 20705, USA.
Agricultural Research Service, Jamie Whitten Delta States Research Center, Genomics and Bioinformatics Research Unit, USDA, 141 Experiment Station Road, Stoneville, MS 38776, USA.
G3 (Bethesda). 2023 Apr 11;13(4). doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkad040.
The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), is a major global pest of cotton. Current management practices include chemical insecticides, cultural strategies, sterile insect releases, and transgenic cotton producing crystalline (Cry) protein toxins of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). These strategies have contributed to the eradication of P. gossypiella from the cotton-growing areas of the United States and northern Mexico. However, this pest has evolved resistance to Bt cotton in Asia, where it remains a critical pest, and the benefits of using transgenic Bt crops have been lost. A complete annotated reference genome is needed to improve global Bt resistance management of the pink bollworm. We generated the first chromosome-level genome assembly for pink bollworm from a Bt-susceptible laboratory strain (APHIS-S) using PacBio continuous long reads for contig generation, Illumina Hi-C for scaffolding, and Illumina whole-genome re-sequencing for error correction. The pseudo-haploid assembly consists of 29 autosomes and the Z sex chromosome. The assembly exceeds the minimum Earth BioGenome Project quality standards, has a low error rate, is highly contiguous at both the contig and scaffold levels (L/N50 of 18/8.26 MB and 14/16.44 MB, respectively), and is complete, with 98.6% of lepidopteran single-copy orthologs represented without duplication. The genome was annotated with 50% repeat content and 14,107 protein-coding genes, further assigned to 41,666 functional annotations. This assembly represents the first publicly available complete annotated genome of pink bollworm and will serve as the foundation for advancing molecular genetics of this important pest species.
红铃虫，Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders)（鳞翅目：麦蛾科），是棉花的全球性重要害虫。目前的管理措施包括使用化学杀虫剂、文化策略、不育昆虫释放和生产苏云金芽孢杆菌（Bt）晶体蛋白毒素的转基因棉花。这些策略有助于消灭美国和墨西哥北部棉花种植区的红铃虫。然而，这种害虫在亚洲已经对 Bt 棉花产生了抗性，在亚洲它仍然是一个关键害虫，使用转基因 Bt 作物的好处已经丧失。需要一个完整注释的参考基因组来改善全球红铃虫对 Bt 的抗性管理。我们使用 PacBio 连续长读长进行连续生成，Illumina Hi-C 进行支架构建，Illumina 全基因组重测序进行错误校正，从 Bt 敏感的实验室品系（APHIS-S）生成了红铃虫的第一个染色体水平基因组组装。假单倍体组装由 29 条常染色体和 Z 性染色体组成。该组装超过了最低的地球生物基因组计划质量标准，具有低错误率，在连续体和支架水平上都高度连续（分别为 18/8.26MB 和 14/16.44MB），并且完整，没有重复地代表了 98.6%的鳞翅目单拷贝同源物。该基因组的注释重复含量为 50%，有 14,107 个编码蛋白质的基因，进一步分配到 41,666 个功能注释。该组装代表了红铃虫第一个公开可用的完整注释基因组，将作为推进该重要害虫种分子遗传学的基础。
