Dataset Information

Characterization of Adult Transcriptomes from the Omnivorous Lady Beetle Coleomegilla maculata Fed Pollen or Insect Egg Diet.

ABSTRACT: Diet, nutrition, and obesity are important topics of current research. While many insect genome and/or transcriptome models are based on dietary specialists, the lady beetle Coleomegilla maculata, a common New World species, is highly omnivorous. C. maculata feeds on plants, fungi, insects and other arthropods; its diet frequently includes conspecific cannibalism. This study reports and discusses the first nutritionally based C. maculata transcriptomes. These transcriptomes were prepared from highly inbred specimens provided limited diets, after adult eclosion, of either pollen only or eggs of a soft bodied hemipteran insect only. Selected sequences from the transcriptomes were compared to verify basic genetic similarity of the sampled individuals. Differentially expressed genes associated with these diets were identified to aid with studies of omnivore diet and nutrition. Selected transcriptome sequences described herein are filed with the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), GenBank Bioproject PRJNA236444.

SUBMITTER: Allen ML

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4303598 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Characterization of Adult Transcriptomes from the Omnivorous Lady Beetle Coleomegilla maculata Fed Pollen or Insect Egg Diet.

Allen Margaret Louise ML

Journal of genomics 20150110

Diet, nutrition, and obesity are important topics of current research. While many insect genome and/or transcriptome models are based on dietary specialists, the lady beetle Coleomegilla maculata, a common New World species, is highly omnivorous. C. maculata feeds on plants, fungi, insects and other arthropods; its diet frequently includes conspecific cannibalism. This study reports and discusses the first nutritionally based C. maculata transcriptomes. These transcriptomes were prepared from hi ...[more]

PMID: 25628762

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Project description:BackgroundObligate bacterial symbionts alter the diets of host animals in numerous ways, but the ecological roles of facultative bacterial residents that colonize insect guts remain unclear. Carabid beetles are a common group of beneficial insects appreciated for their ability to consume insect prey and seeds, but the contributions of microbes to diet diversification in this and similar groups of facultative granivores are largely unknown.Methodology and principal findingsUsing 16S rRNA gene clone libraries and terminal restriction fragment (tRF) length polymorphism analyses of these genes, we examined the bacterial communities within the guts of facultatively granivorous, adult Harpalus pensylvanicus (Carabidae), fed one of five dietary treatments: 1) an untreated Field population, 2) Seeds with antibiotics (seeds were from Chenopodium album), 3) Seeds without antibiotics, 4) Prey with antibiotics (prey were Acheta domesticus eggs), and 5) Prey without antibiotics. The number of seeds and prey consumed by each beetle were recorded following treatment. Harpalus pensylvanicus possessed a fairly simple gut community of approximately 3-4 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTU) per beetle that were affiliated with the Gammaproteobacteria, Bacilli, Alphaproteobacteria, and Mollicutes. Bacterial communities of the host varied among the diet and antibiotic treatments. The field population and beetles fed seeds without antibiotics had the closest matching bacterial communities, and the communities in the beetles fed antibiotics were more closely related to each other than to those of the beetles that did not receive antibiotics. Antibiotics reduced and altered the bacterial communities found in the beetle guts. Moreover, beetles fed antibiotics ate fewer seeds, and those beetles that harbored the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis consumed more seeds on average than those lacking this symbiont.Conclusions/significanceWe conclude that the relationships between the bacterium E. faecalis and this factultative granivore's ability to consume seeds merit further investigation, and that facultative associations with symbiotic bacteria have important implications for the nutritional ecology of their hosts.

Project description:Rearing conditions may elicit noticeable plastic responses in life-history traits of living organisms. For instance, diet composition has proven to influence prominent traits such as body size, fecundity, and lifespan. In contrast, the social environment may influence the survival rate at immature stages, food consumption, and fat storage. Nevertheless, the physiological mechanisms underlying such responses are largely unknown. In this study, we investigated changes in the proteome of the house cricket Acheta domesticus subjected to diets of different nutritional composition (i.e., protein to carbohydrates ratio) and two distinct social environments (i.e., solitary or in groups). We measured the relative abundances of 685 proteins identified in whole-body cricket samples using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. Differential expression of proteins induced by diet composition and social environment in female and male A. domesticus was assessed in a data-independent proteomics approach. Additionally, we performed a functional analysis of the differentially expressed proteins using comprehensive databases (KEGG and GO). We found that sex alone explained a significant portion (40.87%) of the relative protein abundance variation. Males had a higher representation of proteins involved in metabolic pathways and locomotion. In contrast, females exhibited a higher abundance of proteins related to genetic processes regulation and nutrient catabolism. Moreover, diet composition and social environment induced sex-specific changes in a smaller set of proteins with particular roles. Females had their protein profile affected by diet composition and social environment. The involved proteins were mainly related to several protein synthesis stages, carbohydrate metabolism, and muscle development. In contrast, males were only affected by diet composition, overexpressing proteins related to hormone production, carbohydrate metabolism, and apparently depositing excess protein in the cuticle when fed with a protein-rich diet. It was evident that diet had a more substantial influence on the proteome of the cricket A. domesticus than the social environment, showing that diet composition may exert profound physiological changes in insects in a sex-specific manner.

Dataset Information

Characterization of Adult Transcriptomes from the Omnivorous Lady Beetle Coleomegilla maculata Fed Pollen or Insect Egg Diet.

Publications

Characterization of Adult Transcriptomes from the Omnivorous Lady Beetle Coleomegilla maculata Fed Pollen or Insect Egg Diet.

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