A clonally reproducing generalist aphid pest colonises diverse host plants by rapid transcriptional plasticity of duplicated gene clusters
2016
Background The prevailing paradigm of host-parasite evolution is that arms races lead to increasing specialisation via genetic adaptation. Insect herbivores are no exception, and the majority have evolved to
colonisea small number of closely related host species. Remarkably, the green peach
aphid,
Myzus persicae,
colonisesplant species across 40 families and single M. persicae clonal lineages can
colonisedistantly related plants. This remarkable ability makes M. persicae a highly destructive pest of many important crop species. Results To investigate the exceptional
phenotypic plasticityof M. persicae , we sequenced the M. persicae genome and assessed how one clonal lineage responds to host plant species of different families. We show that genetically identical individuals are able to
colonisedistantly related host species through the differential regulation of genes belonging to
aphid-expanded
gene families. Multigene clusters collectively up-regulate in single
aphidswithin two days upon
host switch. Furthermore, we demonstrate the functional significance of this rapid transcriptional change using RNA interference (RNAi)-mediated knock-down of genes belonging to the
cathepsin B
gene family. Knock-down of
cathepsin Bgenes reduced
aphidfitness, but only on the host that induced up-regulation of these genes. Conclusions Previous research has focused on the role of genetic adaptation of parasites to their hosts. Here we show that the generalist
aphidpest M. persicae is able to
colonisediverse host plant species in the absence of genetic specialisation. This is achieved through rapid transcriptional plasticity of genes that have duplicated during
aphidevolution.
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