Abstract
A large-scale sequencing analysis of the Hemiptera
Acyrthosiphon pisum
expressed sequence tags corresponding to about 12,000 unique transcripts is described, along with an
in silico
profiling analysis that identifies 135 aphid tissue-specific transcripts.
Aphids are the leading pests in agricultural crops. A large-scale sequencing of 40,904 ESTs from the pea aphid
Acyrthosiphon pisum
was carried out to define a catalog of 12,082 unique transcripts. A strong AT bias was found, indicating a compositional shift between
Drosophila melanogaster
and
A. pisum
. An
in silico
profiling analysis characterized 135 transcripts specific to pea-aphid tissues (relating to bacteriocytes and parthenogenetic embryos). This project is the first to address the genetics of the Hemiptera and of a hemimetabolous insect.