Mermithidae, as an important natural predator of pests such as Bollworm, has great potential for natural
biological control of invasive pests. Unfortunately, the
in vitro culture of the nematode has not yet been successful,
delaying the commercial application of this pest control method. The key reason for this failure is the inability of the
worms to accomplish sex differentiation, sparking a strong interest in this process. Here, we analyzed the differences in
gene expression of female and male postparasitic
Ovomermis sinensis
juveniles by mRNA differential display. In total, 20
gene fragments that had differential expression in male and female worms were isolated, including 8 male- and 12
female-specific ones. Bioinformatics methods were employed to analyze sequences of these fragments, in which ensembl
analysis shows 4 fragments have comparable parts with
C. elegence’s
X chromosome, we speculate those fragments are
important genes which influence sex differentiation of
Ovomermis sinensis, This data provides an idea for further study of
the molecular mechanism of sex differentiation in mermithids.
