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Dryad

Thesis: Transcriptome analysis of insecticide resistant Drosophila suzukii

Abstract

Drosophila suzukii, also known as spotted wing Drosophila (SWD), is an invasive agricultural pest that is a threat to berry production due to a serrated ovipositor on female flies that enables them to lay eggs in soft-skinned, ripening fruits. Currently, growers rely heavily on the use of insecticides to manage D. suzukii. Over the past six years, insecticide resistance has been detected in D. suzukii in California, but the molecular mechanism underlying this adaptation is unknown. Therefore, we sought to identify the molecular mechanism conferring insecticide resistance in these pests. We generated isogenic lines from field-collected resistant populations and sequenced the transcriptomes of two pyrethroid- and two spinosad-resistant lines. In both pyrethroid-resistant isogenic lines and one spinosad-resistant line, we identified an overexpression of metabolic genes that have been previously implicated in insecticide resistance in other insect pests. In the other spinosad-resistant line, we observed an overexpression of cuticular genes that have been linked to insecticide resistance. Additionally, we observed decreased expression of the pyrethroid target gene, paralytic, in both pyrethroid-resistant lines. Our findings enabled the development of molecular diagnostics that can be used to monitor resistance development in the field, specifically by monitoring overexpression of specific target genes. Finally, long-read sequencing reveals transcriptome-wide changes in the expression of different splice variant isoforms, suggesting that alternative splicing can be an additional mechanism enabling insecticide resistance. This study is the first to characterize the molecular mechanisms of insecticide resistance in field-collected D. suzukii and provides insights into how current management practices can be improved.