RNA-Seq of Plant-Parasitic Nematode Meloidogyne incognita at Various Stages of Its Development

Meloidogyne incognita is a plant-parasitic nematode which attacks a diverse variety of plants (Mitkowski and Abawi, 2003). The life cycle of this nematode is comprised of five stages namely eggs, J2, J3, and J4 juveniles and adults. Female adults are important in the life cycle as they produce eggs which hatch into infective J2 that travels and attaches to plant roots for continuation of its infective cycle. Among the stages of its life cycle, the J3, J4, and female are sedentary and occur after the motile J2 infects a plant root. It is an obligate plant-parasite and possesses a wide host range of over 100 plants including cotton, tobacco, legumes, vegetable crops, spices, and coffee. It also is one of the most widely spread plant pest and has been reported from Asia, Africa, North, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Oceania (CABI Data Report; CABI, 2017). Hitherto employed methods have made use of nematicides that can lead to environmental pollution and their use has been banned in developed countries (Collange et al., 2011). Molecular studies on the nematode can help us understand the development and physiology of nematode which can be used to develop control strategies in the future. There have been earlier reports on the transcriptome from egg and J2 juveniles ofM. incognita and from infected plant tissues (McCarter et al., 2003; Neveu et al., 2003; Dubreuil et al., 2007; Schaff et al., 2007). The present report was aimed at expanding the currently available information on transcriptome of M. incognita. We aimed to study RNA-Seq data independently for the endophytic J3, J4, and female stages, as well as exophytic egg and J2 stages of the nematode.