De Novo Transcriptome of the Hemimetabolous German Cockroach (Blattella germanica)

BACKGROUND The German cockroach, Blattella germanica, is an important insect pest that transmits various pathogens mechanically and causes severe allergic diseases. This insect has long served as a model system for studies of insect biology, physiology and ecology. However, the lack of genome or transcriptome information heavily hinder our further understanding about the German cockroach in every aspect at a molecular level and on a genome-wide scale. To explore the transcriptome and identify unique sequences of interest, we subjected the B. germanica transcriptome to massively parallel pyrosequencing and generated the first reference transcriptome for B. germanica. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS A total of 1,365,609 raw reads with an average length of 529 bp were generated via pyrosequencing the mixed cDNA library from different life stages of German cockroach including maturing oothecae, nymphs, adult females and males. The raw reads were de novo assembled to 48,800 contigs and 3,961 singletons with high-quality unique sequences. These sequences were annotated and classified functionally in terms of BLAST, GO and KEGG, and the genes putatively coding detoxification enzyme systems, insecticide targets, key components in systematic RNA interference, immunity and chemoreception pathways were identified. A total of 3,601 SSRs (Simple Sequence Repeats) loci were also predicted. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE The whole transcriptome pyrosequencing data from this study provides a usable genetic resource for future identification of potential functional genes involved in various biological processes.