The Colorado potato beetle is one of the most challenging agricultural pests to manage. It has shown a spectacular ability to adapt to a variety of solanaceaeous plants and variable climates during its global invasion, and, notably, to rapidly evolve insecticide resistance. To examine evidence of rapid evolutionary change, and to understand the genetic basis of herbivory and insecticide resistance, we tested for structural and functional genomic changes relative to other arthropod species using genome sequencing, transcriptomics, and community annotation. Two factors that might facilitate rapid evolutionary change include transposable elements, which comprise at least 17% of the genome and are rapidly evolving compared to other Coleoptera, and high levels of nucleotide diversity in rapidly growing pest populations. Adaptations to plant feeding are evident in gene expansions and differential expression of digestive enzymes in gut tissues, as well as expansions of gustatory receptors for bitter tasting. Surprisingly, the suite of genes involved in insecticide resistance is similar to other beetles. Finally, duplications in the RNAi pathway might explain whyLeptinotarsa decemlineatahas high sensitivity to dsRNA. TheL.decemlineatagenome provides opportunities to investigate a broad range of phenotypes and to develop sustainable methods to control this widely successful pest.

The alarming escalation of infectious diseases resistant to conventional antibiotics requires urgent global actions, including the development of new therapeutics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) represent potential alternatives in the treatment of multi-drug resistant (MDR) infections. Here, we focus on Cecropins (Cecs), a group of naturally occurring AMPs in insects, and on synthetic Cec-analogs. We describe their action mechanisms and antimicrobial activity against MDR bacteria and other pathogens. We report several data suggesting that Cec and Cec-analog peptides are promising antibacterial therapeutic candidates, including their low toxicity against mammalian cells, and anti-inflammatory activity. We highlight limitations linked to the use of peptides as therapeutics and discuss methods overcoming these constraints, particularly regarding the introduction of nanotechnologies. New formulations based on natural Cecs would allow the development of drugs active against Gram-negative bacteria, and those based on Cec-analogs would give rise to therapeutics effective against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens. Cecs and Cec-analogs might be also employed to coat biomaterials for medical devices as an approach to prevent biomaterial-associated infections. The cost of large-scale production is discussed in comparison with the economic and social burden resulting from the progressive diffusion of MDR infectious diseases.

Sturgeons are a group of Condrostean fish with very high evolutionary, economical and conservation interest. The eggs of these living fossils represent one of the most high prized foods of animal origin. The intense fishing pressure on wild stocks to harvest caviar has caused in the last decades a dramatic decline of their distribution and abundance leading the International Union for Conservation of Nature to list them as the more endangered group of species. As a direct consequence, world-wide efforts have been made to develop sturgeon aquaculture programmes for caviar production. In this context, the characterization of the genes involved in sex determination could provide relevant information for the selective farming of the more profitable females. The 454 sequencing of two cDNA libraries from the gonads and brain of one male and one female full-sib A. naccarii, yielded 182,066 and 167,776 reads respectively, which, after strict quality control, were iterative assembled into more than 55,000 high quality ESTs. The average per-base coverage reached by assembling the two libraries was 4X. The multi-step annotation process resulted in 16% successfully annotated sequences with GO terms. We screened the transcriptome for 32 sex-related genes and highlighted 7 genes that are potentially specifically expressed, 5 in male and 2 in females, at the first life stage at which sex is histologically identifiable. In addition we identified 21,791 putative EST-linked SNPs and 5,295 SSRs. This study represents the first large massive release of sturgeon transcriptome information that we organized into the public database AnaccariiBase, which is freely available at http://compgen.bio.unipd.it/anaccariibase/ . This transcriptomic data represents an important source of information for further studies on sturgeon species. The hundreds of putative EST-linked molecular makers discovered in this study will be invaluable for sturgeon reintroduction and breeding programs.

The Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) is a major pest and a serious threat to potato cultivation throughout the northern hemisphere. Despite its high importance for invasion biology, phenology and pest management, little is known about L. decemlineata from a genomic perspective. We subjected European L. decemlineata adult and larval transcriptome samples to 454-FLX massively-parallel DNA sequencing to characterize a basal set of genes from this species. We created a combined assembly of the adult and larval datasets including the publicly available midgut larval Roche 454 reads and provided basic annotation. We were particularly interested in diapause-specific genes and genes involved in pesticide and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) resistance. Using 454-FLX pyrosequencing, we obtained a total of 898,048 reads which, together with the publicly available 804,056 midgut larval reads, were assembled into 121,912 contigs. We established a repository of genes of interest, with 101 out of the 108 diapause-specific genes described in Drosophila montana; and 621 contigs involved in insecticide resistance, including 221 CYP450, 45 GSTs, 13 catalases, 15 superoxide dismutases, 22 glutathione peroxidases, 194 esterases, 3 ADAM metalloproteases, 10 cadherins and 98 calmodulins. We found 460 putative miRNAs and we predicted a significant number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (29,205) and microsatellite loci (17,284). This report of the assembly and annotation of the transcriptome of L. decemlineata offers new insights into diapause-associated and insecticide-resistance-associated genes in this species and provides a foundation for comparative studies with other species of insects. The data will also open new avenues for researchers using L. decemlineata as a model species, and for pest management research. Our results provide the basis for performing future gene expression and functional analysis in L. decemlineata and improve our understanding of the biology of this invasive species at the molecular level.

Invasive pest species offers a unique opportunity to study the effects of genetic architecture, demography and selection on patterns of genetic variability. Invasive Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) populations have experienced a rapid range expansion and intense selection by insecticides. By comparing native and invasive beetle populations, we studied the origins of organophosphate (OP) resistance-associated mutations in the acetylcholinesterase 2 (AChE2) gene, and the role of selection and demography on its genetic variability.