Aedes aegypti - female antennal transcriptome of forest and domestic forms

We sequenced the female antennal transcriptomes of forest and domestic forms of the Dengue Fever Mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and their F2 hybrids in order to gain insight into the genetic basis of preference for human odor. The domestic and forest forms coexist in Rabai, Kenya, where most of these samples were collected. The domestic form specializes on biting humans, is strongly attracted to human odor, and is derived from populations of the non-African subspecies Aedes aegypti aegypti. The forest form is opportunistic, prefers the odor of non-human animals in laboratory assays, and belongs to the native African subspecies Aedes aegypti formosus. We sequenced Illumina RNAseq libraries derived from the antennae of 100-150 females from each of 3 domestic colonies from Rabai, Kenya (K2, K4, K14), 3 forest colonies from Rabai, Kenya (K18, K19, K27), 1 colony of Aedes aegypti aegypti from Thailand (T32) and 1 colony of Aedes aegypti formosus from Uganda (U30). Colonies from Kenya and Thailand/Uganda were derived from 2-20 and 50-200 field caught individuals, respectively, and had been reared in the lab for 3-8 generations. We also sequenced Illumina RNAseq libraries derived from the antennae of 50-60 females from 2 strongly human-preferring and 2 strongly guinea pig preferring pools of F2 hybrids (HU1, HU2, GP1, GP2). The F2 hybrids were isolated from a large population of ~2500 F2 females generated from a cross between multiple individuals of 1 forest and 1 domestic colony. More information on these samples can be found in the associated publication.

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