The venom gland transcriptome of the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis highlights the importance of novel genes in venom function

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Andre D. Sim ; David Wheeler
• 关键词：Ovary ; RNA ; seq ; Transcriptomics ; Serine protease ; Drug development ; Venom gene
• 刊名：BMC Genomics
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：December 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：17
• 期：1
• 全文大小：2164KB
• 刊物主题：Life Sciences, general; Microarrays; Proteomics; Animal Genetics and Genomics; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Plant Genetics & Genomics;
• 出版者：BioMed Central
• ISSN：1471-2164
• 卷排序：17

文摘

BackgroundPrior to egg laying the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis envenomates its pupal host with a complex mixture of venom peptides. This venom induces several dramatic changes in the host, including developmental arrest, immunosuppression, and altered metabolism. The diverse and potent bioactivity of N. vitripennis venom provides opportunities for the development of novel acting pharmaceuticals based on these molecules. However, currently very little is known about the specific functions of individual venom peptides or what mechanisms underlie the hosts response to envenomation. Many of the venom peptides also lack bioinformatically derived annotations because no homologs can be identified in the sequences databases. The RNA interference system of N. vitripennis provides a method for functional characterisation of venom protein encoding genes, however working with the current list of 79 candidates represents a daunting task. For this reason we were interested in determining the expression levels of venom encoding genes in the venom gland, as this information could be used to rank candidates for further study. To do this we carried out deep transcriptome sequencing of the venom gland and ovary tissue and used RNA-seq to rank the venom protein encoding genes by expression level. The generation of a specific venom gland transcriptome dataset also provides further opportunities to investigate novel features of this specialised organ.