Project description:Rapid development and application of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers from transcriptome sequence to detect variation in the legume pod borer Maruca vitrata (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) population of West Africa.
Project description:The present work is the pioneering report depicting the total proteomic atlas of four major developmental stages (third, fourth, fifth instar and pupa) of M. vitrata by LC-MS/MS analyses.
Project description:In this study, we sought to identify functionally important differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) in the four life stages of M. vitrata. That data can provide an insight into the biological processes involved in insect metamorphosis.
Project description:Insect growth is influenced by two major environmental factors: temperature and nutrient. These environmental factors are internally mediated by insulin/insulin-like growth factor signal (IIS) to coordinate tissue or organ growth. Maruca vitrata, a subtropical lepidopteran insect, migrates to different climate regions and feeds on various crops. The objective of this study was to determine molecular tools to predict growth rate of M. vitrata using IIS components. Four genes [insulin receptor (InR), Forkhead Box O (FOXO), Target of Rapamycin (TOR), and serine-threonine protein kinase (Akt)] were used to correlate their expression levels with larval growth rates under different environmental conditions. The functional association of IIS and larval growth was confirmed because RNA interference of these genes significantly decreased larval growth rate and pupal weight. Different rearing temperatures altered expression levels of these four IIS genes and changed their growth rate. Different nutrient conditions also significantly changed larval growth and altered expression levels of IIS components. Different local populations of M. vitrata exhibited significantly different larval growth rates under the same nutrient and temperature conditions along with different expression levels of IIS components. Under a constant temperature (25°C), larval growth rates showed significant correlations with IIS gene expression levels. Subsequent regression formulas of expression levels of four IIS components against larval growth rate were applied to predict growth patterns of M. vitrata larvae reared on different natural hosts and natural local populations reared on the same diet. All four formulas well predicted larval growth rates with some deviations. These results indicate that the IIS expression analysis explains the growth variation at the same temperature due to nutrient and genetic background.
Project description:Legume pod borer, Maruca vitrata, has lately emerged as one of the major insect pests of pigeonpea causing considerable crop losses. Thus, efficient management of M. vitrata is an important component for sustained pigeonpea productivity for which information on insect diversity could be useful. Present study was undertaken to evaluate the diversity in M. vitrata populations collected from major pigeonpea growing areas of India using molecular markers, Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and Translational Elongation Factor-1? (tef-1?). Genomic DNA from larvae of different populations was extracted; 709 bp and 550 bp fragments of cox1 and tef-1? were PCR-amplified, cloned and sequenced. Comparison of sequences of different populations using multiple sequence alignment did not show any differences in cox1 and tef-1? sequences within the Indian populations. However, further analysis based upon cox1 sequences has revealed moderate nucleotide diversity (??=?0.26174) among Indian and global M. vitrata populations, whereas nucleotide diversity within Indian populations is nonsignificant (??=?0.00226). Additionally, phylogenetic analysis of cox1 sequences grouped all the Indian populations into one cluster while that of global were completely separate indicating a different ancestral background. This is a maiden attempt for diversity assessment of Indian M. vitrata populations that established them to be genetic homologs with different ancestral background.