Scientia Agricultura Sinica ›› 2015, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (17): 3454-3462.doi: 10.3864/j.issn.0578-1752.2015.17.012

• PLANT PROTECTION • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Current Research Status and Prospects of Genomes of Insects Important to Agriculture in China

ZHANG Chuan-xi   

  1. Institute of Insect Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058
  • Received:2015-01-05 Online:2015-09-01 Published:2015-09-01

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Abstract: Insects are the largest class of all living things with overwhelming diversity in the earth. Many of them are of agricultural importance: serious crop pests or beneficial insects. Modern entomological researches are more and more relying on information obtained from different insect genomes and transcriptomes since Drosophila melanogaster genome being sequenced in 2000. To better understand insect biology and transform our ability to manage insects that threaten our health, food supply, and economic security and to use beneficial insects that are essential to the maintenance and productivity of natural and agricultural ecosystems or provide us with silk, honey, medicine and other insect products, we need to know their genomic and transcriptomic information. Up to date, genomes of more than 50 insect species have been sequenced and analyzed around the world, and genomes of five insects of agricultural importance, including the domestic silkworm (Bombyx mori), the diamondback moth (Plutella xylostella), the oriental migratory locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis), the fig wasp (Ceratosolen solmsi) and the brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens), have been analyzed during the past decade in China, and genome sequencing for several agricultural insects including the whitefly (Bemisia tabaci), the oriental leafworm moth (Spodoptera litura), the rice stem borer(Chilo suppressalis), the white backed planthopper (Sogatella furcifera), the small brown planthopper (Laodelphax striatellu) and several parasite wasps, are in progress. Transcriptomes of the whiteflyand brown planthopper were reported in China in 2010, first two insect transciptomes reported in the world. Hundreds of insect transcriptomes have been reported in China since that year. Many important progresses in the functional genomics of the silkworm, the locust and the brown planthopper have been achieved, including the resequencing of 40 varieties of silkworm genomes which revealed domestication events and genes in silkworm, the uncovering of the precise mechanism of phase changes of the migratory locust, and the finding of that two insulin receptors determine alternative wing morphs in planthoppers. Data mining of insect genomes and transcriptomes, together with newly developed targeted genome editing and RNAi technologies, will lead to a revolutionary change in insect pest control and beneficial insect utilization.

Key words: agricultural insects, genome, functional genomics, prospect

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