TY - JOUR

T1 - Gene expression plasticity across hosts of an invasive scale insect species

AU - Christodoulides, Nicholas

AU - Van Dam, Alex R.

AU - Peterson, Daniel A.

AU - Frandsen, Rasmus John Normand

AU - Mortensen, Uffe Hasbro

AU - Petersen, Bent

AU - Rasmussen, Simon

AU - Normark, Benjamin B.

AU - Hardy, Nate B.

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For plant-eating insects, we still have only a nascent understanding of the genetic basis of host-use promiscuity. Here, to improve that situation, we investigated host-induced gene expression plasticity in the invasive lobate lac scale insect, Paratachardina pseudolobata (Hemiptera: Keriidae). We were particularly interested in the differential expression of detoxification and effector genes, which are thought to be critical for overcoming a plant's chemical defenses. We collected RNA samples from P. pseudolobata on three different host plant species, assembled transcriptomes de novo, and identified transcripts with significant hostinduced gene expression changes. Gene expression plasticity was pervasive, but the expression of most detoxification and effector genes was insensitive to the host environment. Nevertheless, some types of detoxification genes were more differentially expressed than expected by chance. Moreover, we found evidence of a trade-off between expression of genes involved in primary and secondary metabolism; hosts that induced lower expression of genes for detoxification induced higher expression of genes for growth. Our findings are largely consonant with those of several recently published studies of other plant-eating insect species. Thus, across plant-eating insect species, there may be a common set of gene expression changes that enable host-use promiscuity.

AB - This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. For plant-eating insects, we still have only a nascent understanding of the genetic basis of host-use promiscuity. Here, to improve that situation, we investigated host-induced gene expression plasticity in the invasive lobate lac scale insect, Paratachardina pseudolobata (Hemiptera: Keriidae). We were particularly interested in the differential expression of detoxification and effector genes, which are thought to be critical for overcoming a plant's chemical defenses. We collected RNA samples from P. pseudolobata on three different host plant species, assembled transcriptomes de novo, and identified transcripts with significant hostinduced gene expression changes. Gene expression plasticity was pervasive, but the expression of most detoxification and effector genes was insensitive to the host environment. Nevertheless, some types of detoxification genes were more differentially expressed than expected by chance. Moreover, we found evidence of a trade-off between expression of genes involved in primary and secondary metabolism; hosts that induced lower expression of genes for detoxification induced higher expression of genes for growth. Our findings are largely consonant with those of several recently published studies of other plant-eating insect species. Thus, across plant-eating insect species, there may be a common set of gene expression changes that enable host-use promiscuity.

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0176956

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0176956

M3 - Journal article

VL - 12

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 5

ER -