Comparative Analysis of Transcriptome Data of Wings from Different Developmental Stages of the Gynaephora...

Gynaephora qinghaiensis is a major pest in the alpine meadow regions of China. While the females are unable to fly, the males can fly and cause widespread damage. The aim of this study was to use transcriptome analysis to identify and verify genes expressed at different developmental stages of Gynaephora qinghaiensis, with particular emphasis on genes associated with wing development. High-throughput sequencing was performed on an Illumina HiSeqTM2000 platform to assess transcriptomic differences in the wings of male and female pupa and male and female adults of Gynaephora qinghaiensis, and the expression levels of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were verified by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). A total of 60,536 unigenes were identified from the transcriptome data, and 25,162 unigenes were obtained from a comparison with four major databases. Further analysis identified 18 DEGs associated with wing development in Gynaephora qinghaiensis. RT-qPCR verification of the expression levels showed consistency with the RNA sequencing results. Spatio-temporal expression profiling of the 18 genes indicated different levels of expression in the thoraces of male and female pupa, as well as between the wing buds of adult females and the wings of adult males. GO annotation analysis showed that the DEGs were associated with similar categories with no significant enrichment and were involved in cellular processes, cellular anatomical entities, and binding. KEGG analysis indicated that the DEGs were associated with endocytosis and metabolic pathways. The results of this study expand the information on genes associated with Gynaephora qinghaiensis wing development and provide support for further investigations of wing development at the molecular level.