| Genome characteristics of the bacterial symbiont of the stinkbug Acrosternum arabicum (Hem., Pentatomidae) |
| Paper ID : 1277-3IICE (R1) |
| Authors: |
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Marzieh Kashkouli *1, Yaghoub Fathipour2, Michele Castelli3, Anna Maria Floriano4, Claudio Bandi5, Mohammad MehrabadiMehrabadi6, Davide Sassera4 1Department of Agriculture, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran 2Tarbiat Modares University 3Department of Bioscience, University of Milan, Milan, 20133 4Department of Biology and Biotechnology, University of Pavia, Pavia, 27100, Italy 5Department of Bioscience, University of Milan, Milan, 20133, Italy 6Dept of Entomology, TMU |
| Abstract: |
| Phytophagous pentatomid insects can negatively impact agricultural products. The Acrosternum arabicumWagner (Hem.: Pentatomidae), as pistachio stink bug, can cause kernel necrosis and fruits fall. This pest also transmit the fungal pathogen Nematospora coryli Peglion. Some ecological features of this pest have been studied, but its symbiotic relationship with gut bacteria, as one aspect of its biology, is not understood. In this study, the chromosome characteristics and the symbiont role in A. arabicum were studied using genomics approach. Shotgun Illumina sequencing of a dissected host midgut was performed and total DNA was sequenced on an Illumina – HiSeq X 2500 instrument. The read pairs were assembled and subjected to the Blobology pipeline in order to select only the sequences belonging to the symbiont. Chromosome and plasmid sequences were annotated using Prokka and metabolic reconstruction was done using the automatic annotator server from BlastKOALA. The bio-informatic pipeline allowed to obtain a draft genome (2,853,304 bp, 58.7% GC, 27 contigs, N50:343,358 bp) of the A. arabicum symbiont, which is intermediate in size between free-living Pantoea and other highly-reduced obligate symbionts of stink bugs. Using an annotation procedure, we found that the symbiont retain the predicted capability to perform biosynthesis of amino-acids, vitamins and other metabolites. In addition, a high proportion of total ORFs (approximately one third) was classified as pseudogenes. On the basis of this study and the geographic origin of the bacteria, (persica= Persia, Iran), we propose the name “Candidatus Pantoea persica” for the midgut symbiont associated with the stinkbug A. arabicum. Our data highlight detail genomic features of the A. arabicum symbiont and illustrate the potential additive functions contributed by the bacterial symbiont to this important agricultural pest. |
| Keywords: |
| Next generation sequencing (NGS); Blobology pipeline; Pentatomidae; Pistachio pest; Pantoea genus |
| Status : Paper Accepted (Oral Presentation) |
