Transcriptome analysis of the quantitative distribution of the Cyrtotrachelus buqueti population in two cities in China

Background: Cyrtotrachelus buqueti is a forest pest that severely damages bamboo shoots. Reducing the population of this insect involves complex mechanisms and is dependent on diverse gene expression influenced by environmental factors. Methods: In this study, samples from two regions of China, Muchuan in Sichuan Province and Chishui in Guizhou Province, were investigated through RNA-seq to explore the causes and molecular mechanisms underlying the population reduction of this species. Environmental factors, such as temperature, heavy metal content, and pH, may affect the reduced population of C. buqueti in Chishui. Results: Approximately 44 million high-quality reads were generated, and 94.2% of the data were mapped to the transcriptome. A total of 15,641 out of the 29,406 identified genes were predicted. Moreover, 348 genes were differentially expressed between the two groups of imagoes and included 77 upregulated and 271 downregulated UniGenes. The functional analysis showed that these genes were significantly enriched in ribosome and metabolic pathway categories. The candidate genes, which contributed to C. Buqueti reduction, included 41 genes involved in the ribosome constitution category, five genes in the one-carbon pool pathway by folate category, and five heat shock protein genes. Conclusions: Downregulation of these candidate genes seems to have impaired metabolic processes, such as protein, DNA, RNA, and purine synthesis, as well as carbon and folate metabolism, and finally resulted in the observed reduced population of C. buqueti. Furthermore, temperature, heavy metal content, and pH might influence the population by altering the expressions of genes involved in these metabolic processes.