A transcriptomic atlas of the parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis across ploidy, sex, and tissue
TL;DR
A transcriptomic atlas for N. vitripennis is generated, a resource for analyses on transcriptomic differences across sex, tissue type, ploidy, strain, and temporal change.
Abstract
The parasitoid wasp Nasonia vitripennis is a major insect model for morphology, behavior, and genetics. Like all hymenopterans, it has haplodiploid sex determination: unfertilized eggs develop into haploid males and fertilized eggs develop into diploid females. Ploidy-linked transcriptomic regulation underlying sex determination and sexual phenotypic divergence is fundamental to hymenopteran biology. Additionally, polyploids (diploid males, triploid females) occur in Nasonia and other hymenopterans, representing gene expression mechanisms regulating sexual maintenance outside of standard haplodiploidy. To facilitate the investigation of these phenomena, we generated a transcriptomic atlas for N. vitripennis across two tissues (head and abdomen) for typical haploid males and diploid females and polyploid diploid males and triploid females. These data are ~3,108 Gb of transcriptomic sequences for 264 samples (for a longstanding polyploid line originating from a spontaneous mutation, and for multiple generations of three neo-polyploid lines: two generated from RNA interference of sex-determining genes, and one from colchicine induction). These data are a resource for analyses on transcriptomic differences across sex, tissue type, ploidy, strain, and temporal change.