Identification of candidate sensory-related genes associated with female oviposition behavior in the blowfly Lucilia cuprina

Blow flies (Diptera: Calliphoridae) are key environmental decomposers of organic material. Calliphoridae groups ~1200 species that show a wide spectrum of feeding specializations, from obligate parasites to obligate necrophagous, with many facultative species in between these two conditions. Phylogenetic and ecological information on the origin and evolutionary history of these feeding habits is understudied. Lucilia cuprina is a facultative parasite and one of the main pests of livestock worldwide. The aim of the present work is the identification of genes associated with specific feeding habits and oviposition behavior in L. cuprina and potentially in other blow flies. By conducting an olfaction assay on adults, we observed that approximately 50% of L. cuprina females were attracted to rotten beef, but not males (P < 0.05). Based on these observations, we performed an antenna RNA-Seq analysis by comparison of three groups, i.e. attracted (AF) and non-attracted females (NF) to the rotten beef and males (M), to investigate candidates’ genes associated with this behavior. We observed that the number of down- and upregulated transcripts in AF vs. M was almost three times higher than NF vs. M. In addition, 48 transcripts were exclusively upregulated in AF vs. the other two groups (i.e. NF and M). Finally, 12 sensory-related trancripts were upregulated in both types of females (AF and NF) vs. males. These findings are the first step to select candidate genes to be associated with the oviposition behavior in the female of L. cuprina to be further analyzed in future functional assays.