A first draft genome of the Sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis

Authors: BORGES DOS SANTOS, LUCAS - Universidade De Campinas (UNICAMP); VIANA, JOAO P. G. - University Of Illinois; FRANCISCHINI, FABRICIO J.B. - Syngenta Corporation - Brazil; FOGLIATA, SOFIA - Syngenta; JOYCE, ANDREA - University Of California; DE SOUZA, ANETE - Universidade De Campinas (UNICAMP); MURUA, MARIA - Instituto Nacional De Tecnologia Agropecuaria; Clough, Steven; ZUCCHI, MARIA - Sao Paulo State Agency For Agribusiness Technology (APTA)

Submitted to: F1000Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/16/2020
Publication Date: 10/23/2020
Citation: Borges Dos Santos, L., Viana, J., Francischini, F., Fogliata, S.V., Joyce, A.L., De Souza, A.P., Murua, M.G., Clough, S.J., Zucchi, M.I. 2020. A first draft genome of the Sugarcane borer, Diatraea saccharalis. F1000Research. 9:1269. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.26614.1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.26614.1

Interpretive Summary: Insects can cause major damage and economic loss to crops. One such insect is the sugarcane borer which, in addition to sugarcane, can also damage other grass crops such as maize, wheat, rice and sorghum. The moth probably originated in the Caribbeans, but is now found throughout the Americas, including the Southeastern United States. The more researchers know about the genetic sequence of an insect pest, the better their ability to conduct intelligent experiments to study that insect. For example, the more complete an insect genome is, the easier it is for researcher to identify DNA markers to conduct informative genetic and population studies. Here, we report a first draft assembly of the sugarcane borer genome. We provide strong evidence that there are at lease 1,161 predicted genes with high similarity to genes of related insects (which validates the accuracy of our work) and that the genome contains about 40% repeated sequences. This draft genome sequence expands our knowledge on the genetic characteristics of this devastating insect pest and provides an essential resource for future genetic studies of the species.

Technical Abstract: The sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis), a widely distributed moth throughout the Americas, is a pest that affects economically important crops such as sugarcane, sorghum, wheat, maize and rice. Given its relevant impact on yield production, whole-genome information of the species is needed. Here, we report a first draft assembly of the D. saccharalis genome. The 453 Mbp assembled sequences contain 1,445 BUSCO gene orthologs and 1,161 predicted gene models identified based on homology to the domestic silk moth, Bombyx mori. The repeat content composes 41,18% of the genomic sequences which is in the range of other Lepidopteran species. Interestingly, functional annotation reveals that predicted proteins are involved in important cellular mechanisms such as metabolic pathways and protein synthesis. Finally, the data generated in this study expands our knowledge on the genomic characteristics of this devastating insect pest and provides an essential resource for future genetic studies of the species.