Comparative analysis of the Acyrthosiphon pisum genome and expressed sequence tag-based gene sets from other aphid species

To study gene repertoires and their evolution within aphids, we compared the complete genome sequence of Acyrthosiphon pisum (reference gene set) and expressed sequence tag (EST) data from three other species: Myzus persicae, Aphis gossypii and Toxoptera citricida. We assembled ESTs, predicted coding sequences, and identified potential pairs of orthologues (reciprocical best hits) with A. pisum. Pairwise comparisons show that a fraction of the genes evolve fast (high ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous rates), including many genes shared by aphids but with no hit in Uniprot. A detailed phylogenetic study for four fast-evolving genes (C002, JHAMT, Apo and GH) shows that rate accelerations are often associated with duplication events. We also compare compositional patterns between the two tribes of aphids, Aphidini and Macrosiphini.