Genomics, transcriptomics and CRISPR/CAS9 gene editing approaches to investigate embryonic sex determination in insect pest Ceratitis capitata.

During my PhD, I have carried out studies of genomic and transcriptomic in the non-model system Ceratitis capitata. C. capitata (Diptera, Tephritidae), also called “medfly”, is an insect pest that spread over almost every continent and represents a great danger to the cultivation of fruits for human alimentation. Its vast diffusion, together with its ability to parasitize many fruit hosts and the difficulties humans encountered when trying to control and eradicate it from local areas, made C. capitata one of the most dangerous species to agriculture on a global scale, and therefore, to a significant portion of national and international economies. The reproduction and the sex determination are two crucial aspects to understand the biology of insects and represent optimal targets to limit their growth and diffusion. The project of my PhD consists into two parallel and synergic research lines: 1) transcriptomic (Illumina®) and genomic (PacBio®) approaches to the identification of novel Y-linked genes potentially involved in male sex determination, and X-linked genes in “medfly”; 2) the development and perfecting of a powerful technique of gene editing, the CRISPR/Cas9, to study these novel gene functions.