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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #336829
Research Project: Managing Insects in the Corn Agro-Ecosystem

Location: Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research

Title: Comparison of complete mitochondrial DNA sequences between old and new world strains of the cowpea aphid, Aphis craccivora (Hemiptera: Aphididae)

Author
item SUN, WEILIN - Michigan State University
item HUYNH, BAO - University Of California
item OJO, JAMES - Kwara State University
item Coates, Brad
item KUSI, FRANCIS - Savanna Agricultural Research
item ROBERTS, PHILIP - University Of California
item PITTENDRIGH, BARRY - Michigan State University

Submitted to: AGRI GENE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/24/2017
Publication Date: 3/28/2017
Citation: Sun, W., Huynh, B.L., Ojo, J.A., Coates, B.S., Kusi, F., Roberts, P.A., Pittendrigh, B.R. 2017. Comparison of complete mitochondrial DNA sequences between old and new world strains of the cowpea aphid, Aphis craccivora (Hemiptera: Aphididae). AGRI GENE. 4:23-29. doi:10.1016/j.aggene.2017.03.003.

Interpretive Summary: Aphids are a large a group of soft-bodied insect that feed on the liquid phloem of plants, and one or more aphid species cause damage to most crop plants due to direct feeding or transmission of harmful plant diseases. Difficulties in the control of aphids often resides in the inability to identify biotypes that have very recently diverged to feed on related plant species (e.g. have made a host-plant shift), which results in the inability to accurately estimate the frequency of chemical insecticide resistance traits among biotypes that damage agronomically-important plants. An ARS researcher along with an international team of collaborators used high-throughput genome sequencing technology to generate DNA sequence data, and subsequently assemble the entire mitochondrial genome for two closely related strains of the cowpea aphid. From these data, the extent to variation at the DNA level was estimated, and this information was applied to estimate the degree of relatedness as well as the time since the two trains diverged. These data will be used to help define species within the cowpea pest complex, and be useful to those interested in novel methods to rapidly develop methods to differentiate closely related species at the molecular level.

Technical Abstract: Mitochondrial DNA provides useful tools for inferring population genetic structure within a species and phylogenetic relationships between species. The complete mitogenome sequences were assembled from strains of the cowpea aphids, Aphis craccivora, from the old (15,308 bp) and new world (15,305 bp) from Next Generation Sequencing data. The A. craccivora mitogenomes have 13 protein coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNAs and 2 ribosomal RNAs in the same order and orientation found among Insecta. The two A. craccivora mitogenomes do not contain long intergenic repeats as found in other members of the family Aphididae. Comparisons between strains indicated a 99.7% sequence identity, wherein 57 and 11 substitutions were respectively predicted among reads from new and old world strains. Among these substitutions, 31 and 2 were in PCGs of new world and old world aphids, respectively, and 28 and 2 were nonsynonymous. A majority of the substitutions were in NADH Dehydrogenase subunit 1. Phylogenetic analysis of full mitogenomes sequences predicted that Aphididae as monophyletic and clustered with Pterocommatinae and Aphidinae at subfamily level.