Plant & Animal Genomes XIV Conference

January 14-18, 2006
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Comparative Salivary Gland Transcriptomics Of Three Gall Midge Pests Of Cereal Crops

Omprakash Mittapalli¹ , Jagadish, S. Bentur² , Jeffery, J. Stuart¹ , Ming-Shun Chen³ , Ian, L. Wise⁴ , Richard, H. Shukle⁵

¹  Department of Entomology, 901 West State Street, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

²  Directorate of Rice Research, Rajendra Nagar, Hyderbad, India 500030

³  USDA-ARS, Department of Entomology, 123 W. Waters Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA

⁴  Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, Cereal Research Center, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2M9

⁵  USDA-ARS, Department of Entomology, 901 West State Street, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

Many gall midge species are important economic pests of crop plants. Among the most important are the Hessian fly, Mayetiola destructor, the Asian rice gall midge, Orseolia oryzae, and the orange wheat blossom midge, Sitodiplosis mosellana. The salivary glands of these insects are the source of the chemicals that permit these insects to survive and damage their host plants. Thus, understanding the genes expressed in the salivary glands will provide targets for improved host plant resistance to these pests. To date gene expression has been evaluated only in the salivary gland cells of the Hessian fly. Here we report the comparative transcriptomics for all the three gall midge species. The comparison between the Hessian fly and the wheat midge, both pests of wheat but have different feeding sites is expected to determine which salivary gland transcripts are conserved between the two species and which may be adaptive to the particular plant tissues upon which each species feeds. The second comparison will be the salivary transcriptome of another stem feeder, the Asian rice gall midge (ARGM), but one that feeds on a different host, rice (Oryza sativa). This comparison is expected to reveal which salivary gland transcripts are conserved between those species feeding on wheat and rice and which appear to be adaptive to the host.