Project description:For many behaviours studied at the phenotypic level, we have little or no idea of where to start searching for “candidate” genes: the transcriptome provides such a starting point. Here we consider transcriptomic changes associated with oviposition in the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis. Oviposition is a key behaviour, as females are faced with a variety of decisions that will impact offspring fitness. These include choosing between hosts of differing quality, as well as deciding on clutch size and offspring sex ratio. We compared the whole-body transcriptomes of resting or ovipositing female Nasonia using a “DEEP-Sage” gene expression approach on the Illumina sequencing platform.
Project description:The parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis is an emerging genetic model for functional analysis of DNA methylation. Here, we characterize genome-wide methylation at a base-pair resolution, and compare these results to gene expression across five developmental stages and to methylation patterns reported in other insects. An accurate assessment of DNA methylation across the genome is accomplished using bisulfite sequencing of adult females from a highly inbred line. One-third of genes show extensive methylation over the gene body, yet methylated DNA is not found in non-coding regions and rarely in transposons. Methylated genes occur in small clusters across the genome. Methylation demarcates exon-intron boundaries, with elevated levels over exons, primarily in the 5’ regions of genes. It is also elevated near the sites of translational initiation and termination, with reduced levels in 5’ and 3’ UTRs. Methylated genes have higher median expression levels and lower expression variation across development stages than non-methylated genes. There is no difference in frequency of differential splicing between methylated and non-methylated genes, and as yet no established role for methylation in regulating alternative splicing in Nasonia. Phylogenetic comparisons indicate that many genes maintain methylation status across long evolutionary time scales. Nasonia methylated genes are more likely to be conserved in insects, but even those that are not conserved show broader expression across development than comparable non-methylated genes. Finally, examination of duplicated genes shows that those paralogs that have lost methylation in the Nasonia lineage following gene duplication evolve more rapidly, show decreased median expression levels, and increased specialization in expression across development. Methylation of Nasonia genes signals constitutive transcription across developmental stages, whereas non-methylated genes show more dynamic developmental expression patterns. We speculate that loss of methylation may result in increased developmental specialization in evolution and acquisition of methylation may lead to broader constitutive expression. Whole-genome bisulfite sequencing of 24-hour adult female Nasonia vitripennis whole body samples using Iilumina GAIIx and HiSeq2000.
Project description:We quantified genome-wide total and allele-specific expression in two non-social parasitoids wasp species Nasonia vitripennis and Nasonia giraulti and their reciprocal F1 hybrids. No parent-of-origin effect in allelic expression was found for >8,000 informative genes, suggesting lack of genomic imprinting in adult Nasonia. Gene expression divergence between Nv and Ng could be attributed to both significant cis- and trans- regulatory changes during evolution.
