Evolution of xylophagy in longhorned beetles: Diversity, evolutionary history and functional characterization of plant cell wall degrading enzymes in beetles of the family Cerambycidae
Evolution, Anthropology
Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
Final Report Abstract
We managed to extract high-molecular-weight DNA of high quality and to generate draft genome assemblies for four species, including Rhamnusium bicolor (Lepturinae), Aromia moschata and Molorchus minor (Cerambycinae), and Exocentrus adspersus (Lamiinae). - We generated a species phylogeny based on 305 single-copy orthologous genes extracted from these genomes and other beetle ones that were publicly available. We confirmed the monophyly of the family Cerambycidae, its close relationship to the Chrysomelidae and its integration into the Phytophaga clade. - We confirmed that newly discovered families of PCWDEs in species of Cerambycidae were indeed encoded by beetle’s genomes. Genes encoding these enzymes all contain introns and are surrounded by genes commonly found in the genome of other insect species. - We also show a perfect correlation between the PCWDE families present in our cerambycid transcriptomes and in the corresponding draft genomes, but we annotated more genes per family in the latter compared to the former. Surprisingly, we observed low level of microsynteny in genome regions containing genes encoding PCWDEs compared to what we were expecting, apart between species belonging to the same subfamily. Altogether, these “low quality” draft genomes provided extra insights on our understanding of the evolution of HGT-acquired PCWDEs in Phytophaga beetles. However, we had just enough high-molecular-weight DNA for MinION sequencing – this type of sequencing being prone to sequencing errors – and were not able to polish these draft genome assemblies with Illumina short reads. This is probably the main drawback of our approach.
Publications
- Analyzing the substrate specificity of a class of longhorned-beetle-derived, xylanases by using synthetic arabinoxylan oligo- and polysaccharides. ChemBioChem: A European Journal of Chemical Biology 21 (10), pp. 1517 - 1525 (2020)
Pauchet, Y.; Ruprecht, C.; Pfrengle, F.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1002/cbic.201900687) - Larvae of longhorned beetles (Coleoptera; Cerambycidae) have evolved a diverse and phylogenetically conserved array of plant cell wall degrading enzymes. Systematic Entomology 46 (4), pp. 784 - 797 (2021)
Shin, N. R.; Shin, S.; Okamura, Y.; Kirsch, R.; Lombard, V.; Svacha, P.; Denux, O.; Augustin, S.; Henrissat, B.; McKenna, D. D.; Pauchet, Y.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12488) - Glycoside Hydrolase for Synthesis of Xylose Oligosaccharides. European Patent Office. File no.: EP22151474 (2022)
Shin, N. R.; Pauchet, Y.
