This webinar describes a project that applied Oxford Nanopore long-read RNA-seq to explore the transcriptional landscape of a damaging agricultural pest.

Anthony Bayega of McGill University discusses the study, which looked at the transcriptional dynamics that occur during early embryo development of the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae), a key pest of cultivated olive trees that costs the olive fruits industry an estimated $200 million annually.

Anthony and colleagues combined absolute gene quantification using internal RNA spikes, full-length cDNA sequencing using Oxford Nanopore long-read RNA-seq, and high-resolution timescale experimentation for the study. They generated a de novo transcriptome assembly and identified 3,553 novel genes and a total of 79,810 transcripts.

Dr. Bayega discusses how he and his team also refined gene models for key sex-determining genes, which might provide insights into biological control of this fly.