Complete genome of Pieris rapae, a resilient alien, a cabbage pest, and a source of anti-cancer proteins.

ABSTRACT: The Small Cabbage White ( Pieris rapae) is originally a Eurasian butterfly. Being accidentally introduced into North America, Australia, and New Zealand a century or more ago, it spread throughout the continents and rapidly established as one of the most abundant butterfly species. Although it is a serious pest of cabbage and other mustard family plants with its caterpillars reducing crops to stems, it is also a source of pierisin, a protein unique to the Whites that shows cytotoxicity to cancer cells. To better understand the unusual biology of this omnipresent agriculturally and medically important butterfly, we sequenced and annotated the complete genome from USA specimens. At 246 Mbp, it is among the smallest Lepidoptera genomes reported to date. While 1.5% positions in the geno

SUBMITTER: Shen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5247789 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature