Insights on reproduction‐related genes in the striped fruit fly, Zeugodacus scutellata (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae)

The striped fruit fly, Zeugodacus scutellata is a significant pest in East and Southeast Asia by damaging Cucurbitaceae blossoms and fruits. To control this pest, a novel strategy to suppress the gene(s) associated with sexually dimorphic phenotypes has been devised and implemented in a laboratory scale. However, comprehensive transcriptomic analysis related to this sex differentiation of Z. scutellata was necessary to determine effective target genes for the genetic control. We performed de novo assembly of the transcript obtained by paired‐end sequencing using an Illumina HiSeq platform and let to 217,967 unigenes (i.e., unique genes) with a minimum length of 200 bp. The female produced 31, 604, 442 reads with 97.93% of Q20, 94.76% of Q30, and the male produced 130, 592, 828 reads with 97.93% of Q20 and 94.76 of Q30%. The differentially expressed genes were used to predict genetic factors associated with sex differentiation, which included Rho1, extra‐macrochaetae (emc), hopscotch (hop), doublesex (dsx), sex‐lethal (sxl), transformer‐2 (tra‐2), testis‐specific serine/threonine‐protein kinase (tssk1), tektin1 (tkt1) and 2 (tkt2), odorant binding proteins (OBPs), fruitless (fru), vitellogenin receptor, and hormone receptors in Z. scutellata. In addition, this transcriptome analysis provides the additional gene associated with sex determination and mating behaviors, which would be applied to develop a novel sterile insect technique against Z. scutellata. Research Highlight Behavior and sex determination genes were mined from adult Z. scutellata by transcriptomic analysis, including emc, hop, dsx, sxl, and so forth. Sex‐specific expressed genes were also identified in both male and female adults by differentially expressed gene analysis. Behavior and sex determination genes were mined from Z. scutellata adults by RNA‐seq analysis. Sex‐specific expressed genes were identified in both from Z. scutellata male and female adults by differentially expressed gene analysis.