The Genome of Arsenophonus sp. and Its Potential Contribution in the Corn Planthopper, Peregrinus maidis.

Simple Summary: Microbes play important roles in the biochemistry, physiology and survival of insects. An example is Arsenophonus sp. in the brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens), an endosymbiotic bacterium supplementing the nutritionally poor diet of its sap-feeding host. In this study, we use the genome of Nl Arsenophonus sp. as a reference to facilitate the genome assembly of a closely related Arsenophonus sp. found in the corn planthopper (Peregrinus maidis). Our assembly is one of the largest Arsenophonus genomes reported to date. We also investigated the role of Arsenophonus sp. in P. maidis, in which it appears to provide B vitamins and essential amino acids. The co-evolution between symbionts and their insect hosts has led to intricate functional interdependencies. Advances in DNA-sequencing technologies have not only reduced the cost of sequencing but, with the advent of highly accurate long-read methods, have also enabled facile genome assembly even using mixed genomic input, thereby allowing us to more easily assess the contribution of symbionts to their insect hosts. In this study, genomic data recently generated from Peregrinus maidis was used to assemble the genome of a bacterial symbiont, Pm Arsenophonus sp. This ~4.9-Mb assembly is one of the largest Arsenophonus genomes reported to date. The Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) result indicates that this Pm Arsenophonus assembly has a high degree of completeness, with 96% of the single-copy Enterobacterales orthologs found. The identity of the Pm Arsenophonus sp. was further confirmed by phylogenetic analysis. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis indicates a major contribution by Pm Arsenophonus sp. to the biosynthesis of B vitamins and essential amino acids in P. maidis, where threonine and lysine production is carried out solely by Pm Arsenophonus sp. This study not only provides deeper insights into the evolutionary relationships between symbionts and their insect hosts, but also adds to our understanding of insect biology, potentially guiding the development of novel pest control methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]