Minsheng You

Tea is an important global beverage crop and is largely clonally propagated. Despite previous studies on the species, its genetic and evolutionary history deserves further research. Here, we present a haplotype-resolved assembly of an Oolong tea cultivar, Tieguanyin. Analysis of allele-specific expression suggests a potential mechanism in response to mutation load during long-term clonal propagation. Population genomic analysis using 190 Camellia accessions uncovered independent evolutionary histories and parallel domestication in two widely cultivated varieties, var...

BACKGROUD: Insect biogenic amines play important roles in mediating behavioral and physiological processes. They exert their effects by binding to biogenic amine receptors (BARs), which are specific receptor proteins in the G-protein-coupled receptor superfamily. BAR genes have been cloned and characterized from multiple model insects, including Drosophila melanogaster, Anopheles gambiae, Bombyx mori, Apis mellifera and Tribolium castaneum. However, relatively little work has addressed the molecular properties, expression profiles, and pharmacological characterization of BARs from other insects, including important pests...

In Chinese tea plantations, yellow sticky cards and light traps are increasingly used to control insect pests, especially the tea green leafhopper Empoasca onukii . In this study, a 16-week open-field experiment with daily weather monitoring was designed to test the responses of tea green leafhopper, parasitoids and spiders to yellow sticky cards and three light traps with different wavelengths (covered with sticky cards). An exclosure experiment was also designed to further test the influence of the three light systems (without sticky card) on the same species...

Both field- and landscape-scale factors can influence the predator communities of agricultural pests, but the relative importance and interactions between these scales are poorly understood. Focusing on spiders, an important taxon for providing biological control, we tested the influence of field- and landscape-scale factors on structuring the spider communities in a highly dynamic brassica agroecosystem. We found that local factors (pesticide-use and crop type) and forested landscape significantly influenced the abundance and species richness of spiders, whilst grassland patches significantly affected the spider species richness...

BACKGROUND: Eye pigmentation genes have been utilized as visible markers for constructing genetic control prototypes in several insect vectors of human disease. Here, orthologs of two ommochrome pathway genes, kynurenine 3-hydroxylase (kmo) and cardinal, were investigated in Plutella xylostella, a globally distributed, economically important pest of Brassica crops. RESULTS: Both somatic mosaic and germline mutations were efficiently created using the CRISPR/Cas9 system, and null mutant strains of Pxkmo and Pxcardinal were obtained...

The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), is an economically important pest of cruciferous crops worldwide. This pest is notorious for rapid evolution of the resistance to different classes of insecticides, making it increasingly difficult to control. Genetics-based control approaches, through manipulation of target genes, have been reported as promising supplements or alternatives to traditional methods of pest management. Here we identified a gene of pigmentation (yellow) in P. xylostella, Pxyellow, which encodes 1,674 bp cDNA sequence with four exons and three introns...

Ryanodine receptors (RyRs) are the molecular target of diamides, a new chemical class of insecticides. Diamide insecticides are used to control lepidopteran pests and were considered relatively safe for mammals and non-targeted beneficial insects, including honey bees. However, recent studies showed that exposure to diamides could cause long-lasting locomotor deficits of bees. Here we report the crystal structure of RyR N-terminal domain A (NTD-A) from the honeybee, Apis mellifera, at 2.5 Å resolution. It shows a similar overall fold as the RyR NTD-A from mammals and the diamondback moth (DBM), Plutella xylostella, and still several loops located at the inter-domain interfaces show insect-specific or bee-specific structural features...

The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella, is a cosmopolitan pest and the first species to develop field resistance to toxins from the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Although previous work has suggested that mutations of ATP-binding cassette transporter subfamily C2 (ABCC2) or C3 (ABCC3) genes can confer Cry1Ac resistance, here we reveal that P. xylostella requires combined mutations in both PxABCC2 and PxABCC3 to achieve high-level Cry1Ac resistance, rather than simply a mutation of either gene...

Endophytic fungi are important in diverse plant functions but knowledge of the factors that shape assemblages of these symbionts is lacking. Here, using a culture-dependent approach, we report 4,178 endophytic fungal isolates representing 16 orders isolated from stems, roots and leaves of three cruciferous plant species, Chinese cabbage ( Brassica rapa L.), radish ( Raphanus sativus L.) and white cabbage ( B. olerocea L.), collected from 21 focal fields with different landscape contexts and pesticide uses during four seasons (summer, autumn, winter and spring)...

Odorant binding proteins (OBPs) are critical components in insect olfactory systems where they bind, solubilize and transport odorant molecules to receptors. Here, we cloned three OBPs (PxylGOBP1, PxylGOBP2 and PxylOBP24) from the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella, one of the most destructive pests of cruciferous crops. These three OBPs were expressed in Escherichia coli as recombinant proteins, purified and characterized by fluorescence binding assays with 39 ligands including sex pheromone and plant-derived chemical compounds...

Insect gut microbes play important roles in host feeding, digestion, immunity, growth and development. Spodoptera litura is an important agricultural pest distributed of global importance. In the present study, diversity and functions of the gut bacteria in S. litura are investigated based on the approaches of metagenomics and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). The results showed that the gut bacterial diversity of S. litura reared on taro leaves or an artificial diet, were similar at the phylum level, as both were mainly composed of Proteobacteria, but differed significantly at the order level...

The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella is a cosmopolitan pest that has evolved resistance to all classes of insecticide, and costs the world economy an estimated US $4-5 billion annually. We analyse patterns of variation among 532 P. xylostella genomes, representing a worldwide sample of 114 populations. We find evidence that suggests South America is the geographical area of origin of this species, challenging earlier hypotheses of an Old-World origin. Our analysis indicates that Plutella xylostella has experienced three major expansions across the world, mainly facilitated by European colonization and global trade...

The use of nectar-providing plants to nourish natural enemies of pest species has become a widely-used approach in conservation biological control to reduce pest damage without the indiscriminate use of insecticides. Choice of plant species is crucial to maximize benefits, but suitable species are yet to be identified for many important crop-pest systems. Here we explored the suitability of three candidate nectar plants for use in brassica vegetables to suppress the globally significant pest, Plutella xylostella L...

Vasa is an ATP-dependent RNA helicase, participating in multiple biological processes. It has been widely used as a germ cell marker and its promoter has become a key component of several genetic pest control systems. Here we present the vasa gene structure and its promoter activity in Plutella xylostella, one of the most destructive pests of cruciferous crops. Full length Pxvasa cDNA sequences were obtained, revealing 14 exons and at least 30 alternatively spliced transcripts. Inferred amino acid sequences showed nine conserved DEAD-box family protein motifs with partial exclusion from some isoforms...

The diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella, is the first insect to develop resistance to Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in the field. To date, little is known about the molecular mechanism of the interaction between Bt and midgut immunity in P. xylostella. Here, we report immune responses in the P. xylostella midgut to Bt strain Bt8010 using a combined approach of transcriptomics and quantitative proteomics. Many genes in the Toll, IMD, JNK and JAK-STAT pathways and antimicrobial peptide genes were activated at 18 h post-infection...

Evolutionary adaptations of herbivorous insects are often dictated by the necessity to withstand a corresponding evolutionary innovation in host plant defense. Glucosinolate sulfatase (GSS) enzyme activity is considered a central adaptation strategy in Plutella xylostella against glucosinolates (GS)-myrosinase defense system in the Brassicales. The high functional versatility of sulfatases suggests that they may perform other vital roles in the process of growth and development. Here, we used a CRISPR/Cas9 system to generate stable homozygous single/double mutant lines of gss1 or/and gss2 with no predicted off-target effects, to analyze the functions of the pair of duplicated genes in the development and host adaptation of P...

Diamide insecticides targeting ryanodine receptors (RyRs) are a major class of pesticides used to control a wide range of agricultural pests, but their efficacies have been reduced dramatically by the recent emerging resistance mutations. There is a pressing need to develop novel insecticides targeting distinct and novel binding sites within insect RyRs to overcome the resistance crisis, however, the limited structural information on insect RyRs is a major roadblock to our understanding of their molecular mechanisms...

Diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), is a specialist pest on cruciferous crops of economic importance. The large-scale use of chemical insecticides for the control of this insect pest has caused a number of challenges to agro-ecosystems. With the advent of the omics era, genetic pest management strategies are becoming increasingly feasible and show a powerful potential for pest control. Here, we review strategies for using transgenic plants and sterile insect techniques for genetic pest management and introduce the major advances in the control of P...

The establishment of an expression quantification system that can be easily applied for the comparison of microRNAs (miRNAs) from biological samples is an important step toward understanding functional mechanisms in organisms. However, there is lack of attention on the selection of reference genes for miRNA expression profiling in insect herbivores. Here, we explored the candidate reference genes in a notorious pest of cruciferous crops, Plutella xylostella, for normalization of miRNA expression in developmental stages and tissues and in response to a change of food source from artificial diet to host plant Arabidopsis thaliana...

DNA methylation exerts extensive impacts on gene expression of various living organisms exposed to environmental variation. However, little is known whether DNA methylation is involved in the host transfer of diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.), a worldwide destructive pest of crucifers. In this study, we found that P. xylostella genome exhibited a relatively low level of DNA methylation on the basis of the CpG O/E prediction and experimental validation. A significant positive linear correlation was observed between the stage-specific expressions of PxDNMT1 and DNA methylation levels (5mC content)...