Transcriptome of lifestages of Acheta domesticus

In order to develop genetic resources for the improvement of insects as food, we sequenced transcripts from life stages of the house cricket, Acheta domesticus. A draft transcriptome was assembled from more than 138 million sequences obtained from embryos, one day hatchlings, three nymph stages, and male and female adults. The draft transcriptome assembly contained 46,741 contigs, and more than half (27,641) were similar to sequences at NCBI (e value < e-3). The highest sequence identity was found in sequences from the termite Zootermopsis nevadensis, and Gryllus bimaculatus was the only cricket species with similar sequences. We categorized gene expression in each life stage into groups based on expression level, with most genes expressed from very low to moderate expression (RPKM 1 to 25). The limited number of genes expressed at very high (RPKM 101-1,000) and extremely high (RPKM>1,000) levels mostly were from adult males and one day hatchlings. There were 80 differentially expressed genes common to all life stages (significant at 99.99% C.I.), with some increased during early development, and others expressed at higher levels in later stages. An enrichment analysis of gene ontology terms from each life stage or sex demonstrated genes that were important to biological processes in cricket development. We characterized transcripts that may be important in future studies of genetically modified crickets for improved food production, including those involved in RNA interference, and those encoding prolixin and hexamerin 1. The data represent an important first step in our efforts to provide genetically improved crickets for human consumption and livestock feed.