Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) in populations of Indian Tropical Tasar Silkworm, Antheraea mylitta

Antheraea mylitta Drury, a polyphagous, Sericigenous, lepidopteran insect commonly known as tasar silkworm is a species, found in the form of 44 ecoraces, feeding on a number of food plants. In India, it covers more than twenty states as ecoraces, with variations in phenotypic traits like fecundity, voltinism, cocoon weight, silk ratio etc. The distribution of the species has encountered diverse geographic and climatic variations of the distinct areas, leading to marked differences in not only phenotypical and physiological traits but also in the commercial and technological aspects. A.mylitta Drury (Andhra Local ecorace), which is an exclusive ecorace of the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, is well known for its superior commercial characters, but, is on the verge of extinction due to its weaknesses in voltinism, emergence, hatching, low yield etc. The ecorace conservation is essential to utilize their valuable genes in enhancing productivity and to build variation in new population through hybridization. Modern sequencing methods like Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technologies and Insilco analysis are used in population genetic studies to investigate the evolutionary forces affecting genetic variation. In the present studies, the genomic DNA of parental ecoraces - Andhra local and Daba TV of A. mylitta and their hybrid populations were sequenced independently using the Illumina NextSeq500 in order to analyze their genetic relationship. The sequencing library revealed that the fragment size ranged between 200bp to 700bp and identified 35877 sites in 8 samples. Further, the phylogenetic tree showed closely and distantly related taxa among the populations.