| Autor: |
Manee MM; National Center for Bioinformatics, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia.; National Center for Agricultural Technology, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia., Al-Shomrani BM; National Center for Bioinformatics, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia.; National Center for Agricultural Technology, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia., Altammami MA; National Center for Bioinformatics, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia.; Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK., El-Shafie HAF; Date Palm Research Center of Excellence, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia., Alsayah AA; National Center for Bioinformatics, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia., Alhoshani FM; National Center for Biotechnology, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia., Alqahtani FH; National Center for Bioinformatics, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia.; National Center for Agricultural Technology, King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia. |
| Abstrakt: |
Weevils, classified in the family Curculionidae (true weevils), constitute a group of phytophagous insects of which many species are considered significant pests of crops. Within this family, the red palm weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus , has an integral role in destroying crops and has invaded all countries of the Middle East and many in North Africa, Southern Europe, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and the Caribbean Islands. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs), also termed microsatellites, have become the DNA marker technology most applied to study population structure, evolution, and genetic diversity. Although these markers have been widely examined in many mammalian and plant species, and draft genome assemblies are available for many species of true weevils, very little is yet known about SSRs in weevil genomes. Here we carried out a comparative analysis examining and comparing the relative abundance, relative density, and GC content of SSRs in previously sequenced draft genomes of nine true weevils, with an emphasis on R. ferrugineus . We also used Illumina paired-end sequencing to generate draft sequence for adult female RPW and characterized it in terms of perfect SSRs with 1-6 bp nucleotide motifs. Among weevil genomes, mono- to trinucleotide SSRs were the most frequent, and mono-, di-, and hexanucleotide SSRs exhibited the highest GC content. In these draft genomes, SSR number and genome size were significantly correlated. This work will aid our understanding of the genome architecture and evolution of Curculionidae weevils and facilitate exploring SSR molecular marker development in these species. |
