ORCID Profile
0000-0001-8334-3313
Current Organisations
Ghent University
,
Guizhou University
,
International Joint Laboratory of China-Belgium on Sustainable Crop Pest Control, Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Southwest University
,
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
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Publications
Infections of virulent and avirulent viruses differentially influenced the expression of dicer-1, ago-1, and microRNAs in Bombus terrestris
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-04-2017
DOI: 10.1038/SREP45620
Abstract: The microRNA (miRNA) pathway is well established to be involved in host-pathogen interactions. As key insect pollinators, bees are suffering from widely spreading viruses, especially honeybees and bumblebees. In order to better understand bee-virus interaction, we comparatively analyzed the involvement of the bumblebee miRNA pathway upon infection by two different viruses. In our setup, an avirulent infection is induced by slow bee paralysis virus (SBPV) and a virulent infection is induced by Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV). Our results showed the increased expressions of dicer-1 and ago-1 upon SBPV infection. There were 17 and 12 bumblebee miRNAs differentially expressed upon SBPV and IAPV infections, respectively. These results may indicate the involvement of the host miRNA pathway in bumblebee-virus interaction. However, silencing of dicer-1 did not influence the genome copy number of SBPV. Target prediction for these differentially expressed miRNAs showed their possible involvement in targeting viral genomic RNA and in the regulation of networks in bumblebee. Our study opens a new insight into bee-virus interaction meditated by host miRNAs.
Multiple incursion pathways for Helicoverpa armigera in Brazil show its genetic diversity spreading in a connected world
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-12-2019
DOI: 10.1038/S41598-019-55919-9
Abstract: The Old World cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera was first detected in Brazil with subsequent reports from Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, and Uruguay. This pattern suggests that the H . armigera spread across the South American continent following incursions into northern/central Brazil, however, this hypothesis has not been tested. Here we compare northern and central Brazilian H . armigera mtDNA COI haplotypes with those from southern Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. We infer spatial genetic and gene flow patterns of this dispersive pest in the agricultural landscape of South America. We show that the spatial distribution of H . armigera mtDNA haplotypes and its inferred gene flow patterns in the southwestern region of South America exhibited signatures inconsistent with a single incursion hypothesis. Simulations on spatial distribution patterns show that the detection of rare and/or the absence of dominant mtDNA haplotypes in southern H . armigera populations are inconsistent with genetic signatures observed in northern and central Brazil. Incursions of H . armigera into the New World are therefore likely to have involved independent events in northern/central Brazil, and southern Brazil/Uruguay-Argentina-Paraguay. This study demonstrates the significant biosecurity challenges facing the South American continent, and highlights alternate pathways for introductions of alien species into the New World.
Correction to: 2021 Taxonomic update of phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-11-2021
Correction to: Genome-enabled insights into the biology of thrips as crop pests
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-11-2020
DOI: 10.1186/S12915-020-00915-Z
Abstract: An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.
C olorado potato beetle (C oleoptera) gut transcriptome analysis: expression of RNA interference‐related genes
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 05-11-2013
DOI: 10.1111/IMB.12054
Abstract: In the search for new methods of pest control, the potential of RNA interference (RNAi) is being explored. Because the gut is the first barrier for the uptake of double-stranded (ds)RNA, pyrosequencing of the gut transcriptome is a powerful tool for obtaining the necessary sequences for specific dsRNA-mediated pest control. In the present study, a dataset representing the gut transcriptome of the Colorado potato beetle (CPB Leptinotarsa decemlineata) was generated and analysed for the presence of RNAi-related genes. Almost all selected genes that were implicated in silencing efficiency at different levels in the RNAi pathway (core machinery, associated intracellular factors, dsRNA uptake, antiviral RNAi, nucleases), which uses different types of small RNA (small interfering RNA, microRNA and piwi-RNA), were expressed in the CPB gut. Although the database is of lower quality, the majority of the RNAi genes are also found to be present in the gut transcriptome of the tobacco hornworm [TH Manduca sexta (19 out of 35 genes analysed)]. The high quality of the CPB transcriptome database will lay the foundation for future gene expression and functional studies regarding the gut and RNAi.
Mitochondrial DNA COI characterization of Helicoverpa armigera (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) from Paraguay and Uruguay
Publisher: Genetics and Molecular Research
Date: 2016
DOI: 10.4238/GMR.15028292
Abstract: Since its detection in Brazil in 2013, the Old World cotton bollworm Helicoverpa armigera has been reported in Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Here we present evidence extending the South American range of H. armigera to Uruguay, using polymerase chain reaction and sequencing of the partial mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) cytochrome oxidase I region. Molecular characterization of this gene region from in iduals from Paraguay also supports previous morphological identification of H. armigera in Paraguay. Shared mtDNA haplotypes in H. armigera from Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay were identified. Additional surveying of populations in this region will be imperative to better monitor and understand factors that are underpinning its presence and successful adaptation in these South American regions. We discuss our findings with respect to the development of resistance pest management strategies of this invasive insect pest in a predominantly monoculture soybean crop landscape in the Southern Cone region.
Glycosylation Signatures in Drosophila: Fishing with Lectins
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 03-05-2010
DOI: 10.1021/PR1001753
Abstract: Glycosylation is a co- and/or post-translational protein modification that generates enormous structural ersity among glycoproteins. In this study, immobilized lectins were used to capture glycoproteins with different glycan profiles from Drosophila melanogaster extracts. On the basis of previous results from glycan array analyses, the snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) agglutinin (GNA), the tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) lectin (Nictaba) and the Rhizoctoni solani agglutinin (RSA) were used to select for a broad range of N- and O-glycan structures. After different lectin affinity chromatographies, the glycoproteome of Drosophila was analyzed using LC-MS/MS and glycoprotein abundances were calculated by different label-free methods. Bioinformatics tools were used to annotate the identified glycoproteins and the glycoproteins were classified according to their molecular function or their involvement in a biological process. Subsequent enrichment analysis (using the DAVID database) was employed to find biological processes or molecular functions in Drosophila in which a particular glycan signature is overrepresented. The results presented here clearly demonstrate that next to the presence of high-mannose and pauci-mannose N-glycans, Drosophila is capable of synthesizing glycoproteins carrying extended hybrid and complex N-linked glycans. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that a specific glycosylation signature can be associated with a functionally related group of glycoproteins in Drosophila, both in terms of biological process and molecular function.
Diversity in Protein Glycosylation among Insect Species
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 23-02-2011
CropPol : A dynamic, open and global database on crop pollination
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 17-02-2022
DOI: 10.1002/ECY.3614
Abstract: Seventy five percent of the world's food crops benefit from insect pollination. Hence, there has been increased interest in how global change drivers impact this critical ecosystem service. Because standardized data on crop pollination are rarely available, we are limited in our capacity to understand the variation in pollination benefits to crop yield, as well as to anticipate changes in this service, develop predictions, and inform management actions. Here, we present CropPol, a dynamic, open, and global database on crop pollination. It contains measurements recorded from 202 crop studies, covering 3,394 field observations, 2,552 yield measurements (i.e., berry mass, number of fruits, and fruit density [kg/ha], among others), and 47,752 insect records from 48 commercial crops distributed around the globe. CropPol comprises 32 of the 87 leading global crops and commodities that are pollinator dependent. Malus domestica is the most represented crop (32 studies), followed by Brassica napus (22 studies), Vaccinium corymbosum (13 studies), and Citrullus lanatus (12 studies). The most abundant pollinator guilds recorded are honey bees (34.22% counts), bumblebees (19.19%), flies other than Syrphidae and Bombyliidae (13.18%), other wild bees (13.13%), beetles (10.97%), Syrphidae (4.87%), and Bombyliidae (0.05%). Locations comprise 34 countries distributed among Europe (76 studies), North America (60), Latin America and the Caribbean (29), Asia (20), Oceania (10), and Africa (7). S ling spans three decades and is concentrated on 2001–2005 (21 studies), 2006–2010 (40), 2011–2015 (88), and 2016–2020 (50). This is the most comprehensive open global data set on measurements of crop flower visitors, crop pollinators and pollination to date, and we encourage researchers to add more datasets to this database in the future. This data set is released for non‐commercial use only. Credits should be given to this paper (i.e., proper citation), and the products generated with this database should be shared under the same license terms (CC BY‐NC‐SA).
Genome-enabled insights into the biology of thrips as crop pests
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 13-02-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.02.12.941716
Abstract: The western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), is a globally invasive pest and plant virus vector on a wide array of food, fiber and ornamental crops. While there are numerous studies centered on thrips pest and vector biology, feeding behaviors, ecology, and insecticide resistance, the underlying genetic mechanisms of the processes governing these areas of research are largely unknown. To address this gap, we present the F. occidentalis draft genome assembly and official gene set. We report on the first genome sequence for any member of the insect order Thysanoptera. Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Ortholog (BUSCO) assessments of the genome assembly (size = 415.8 Mb, scaffold N50 = 948.9 Kb) revealed a relatively complete and well-annotated assembly in comparison to other insect genomes. The genome is unusually GC-rich (50%) compared to other insect genomes to date. The official gene set (OGS v1.0) contains 16,859 genes, of which ∼10% were manually verified and corrected by our consortium. We focused on manual annotation, phylogenetic and expression evidence analyses for gene sets centered on primary themes in the life histories and activities of plant-colonizing insects. Highlights include: 1) ergent clades and large expansions in genes associated with environmental sensing (chemosensory receptors) and detoxification (CYP4, CYP6 and CCE enzymes) of substances encountered in agricultural environments 2) a comprehensive set of salivary gland-associated genes supported by enriched expression 3) apparent absence of members of the IMD innate immune defense pathway and 4) developmental- and sex-specific expression analyses of genes associated with progression from larvae to adulthood through neometaboly, a distinct form of maturation compared to complete metamorphosis in the Holometabola. Analysis of the F. occidentalis genome offers insights into the polyphagous behavior of this insect pest to find, colonize and survive on a widely erse array of plants. The genomic resources presented here enable a more complete analysis of insect evolution and biology, providing a missing taxon for contemporary insect genomics-based analyses. Our study also offers a genomic benchmark for molecular and evolutionary investigations of other thysanopteran species.
Misidentification of OLGA-PH-J/92, believed to be the only crustacean cell line
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 22-09-2011
DOI: 10.1007/S11626-011-9447-Y
Abstract: Continuous cell lines from aquatic invertebrate species are few and the development of crustacean cell lines remains an elusive goal. Although a crayfish cell line derived from neural ganglia of Orconectes limosus was reported in 2000, this cell line OLGA-PH-J/92 failed to be authenticated as such. In this report, we describe our attempts to identify the taxonomic identity of the cell line through immunological and molecular techniques. Immunohistochemical screening for the expression of a suite of invertebrate neuropeptides gave negative results, precluding an invertebrate neural origin. PCR lification and DNA sequencing for the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxydase I, and 18S ribosomal RNA genes that had been widely used to confirm species identity, could not confirm the OLGA-PH-J/92 cells as originating from crayfish. Subsequent attempts to identify the cells provided moderate homology (82%) to Gephyramoeba sp. (AF293897) following PCR lification of an 18S rDNA fragment after a BLAST search. A literature search provided morphological evidence of the similarity of OLGA-PH-J/92 to the Gephyramoeba distributed by the American Type Culture Collection as ATCC 50654, which also had been misidentified and was renamed Acramoeba dendroida (Smirnov et al., Eur J Protistol 44:35-44, 2008). The morphology of the OLGA-PH-J/92 cells which remains identical to the original report (Neumann et al., In Vivo 14:691-698, 2000) and matched corresponding micrographs that were available from the ATCC before the cell line was dropped from their catalog (ATCC CRL 1494) is very similar to A. dendroida and could thus belong to the Acramoebidae. These results unequivocally indicate that the OLGA-PH-J/92 cell line is not derived from the crayfish O. limosus, and the search for an immortal crustacean cell line continues.
Critical links between biodiversity and health in wild bee conservation
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2022
DOI: 10.1016/J.TREE.2021.11.013
Abstract: Wild bee populations are declining due to human activities, such as land use change, which strongly affect the composition and ersity of available plants and food sources. The chemical composition of food (i.e., nutrition) in turn determines the health, resilience, and fitness of bees. For pollinators, however, the term 'health' is recent and is subject to debate, as is the interaction between nutrition and wild bee health. We define bee health as a multidimensional concept in a novel integrative framework linking bee biological traits (physiology, stoichiometry, and disease) and environmental factors (floral ersity and nutritional landscapes). Linking information on tolerated nutritional niches and health in different bee species will allow us to better predict their distribution and responses to environmental change, and thus support wild pollinator conservation.
Genome-enabled insights into the biology of thrips as crop pests
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 19-10-2020
DOI: 10.1186/S12915-020-00862-9
Abstract: The western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande), is a globally invasive pest and plant virus vector on a wide array of food, fiber, and ornamental crops. The underlying genetic mechanisms of the processes governing thrips pest and vector biology, feeding behaviors, ecology, and insecticide resistance are largely unknown. To address this gap, we present the F. occidentalis draft genome assembly and official gene set. We report on the first genome sequence for any member of the insect order Thysanoptera. Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Ortholog (BUSCO) assessments of the genome assembly (size = 415.8 Mb, scaffold N50 = 948.9 kb) revealed a relatively complete and well-annotated assembly in comparison to other insect genomes. The genome is unusually GC-rich (50%) compared to other insect genomes to date. The official gene set (OGS v1.0) contains 16,859 genes, of which ~ 10% were manually verified and corrected by our consortium. We focused on manual annotation, phylogenetic, and expression evidence analyses for gene sets centered on primary themes in the life histories and activities of plant-colonizing insects. Highlights include the following: (1) ergent clades and large expansions in genes associated with environmental sensing (chemosensory receptors) and detoxification (CYP4, CYP6, and CCE enzymes) of substances encountered in agricultural environments (2) a comprehensive set of salivary gland genes supported by enriched expression (3) apparent absence of members of the IMD innate immune defense pathway and (4) developmental- and sex-specific expression analyses of genes associated with progression from larvae to adulthood through neometaboly, a distinct form of maturation differing from either incomplete or complete metamorphosis in the Insecta. Analysis of the F. occidentalis genome offers insights into the polyphagous behavior of this insect pest that finds, colonizes, and survives on a widely erse array of plants. The genomic resources presented here enable a more complete analysis of insect evolution and biology, providing a missing taxon for contemporary insect genomics-based analyses. Our study also offers a genomic benchmark for molecular and evolutionary investigations of other Thysanoptera species.
Related Organisations
International Joint Laboratory Of China-Belgium On Sustainable Crop Pest Control, Academy Of Agricultural Sciences, Southwest University
Location: China
Related Funding Activities
No related grants have been discovered for Guy Smagghe.