Sen Xie

Area of research

Insect Science · Immunology

Research interest

Research topics from publications: Gut bacteria of the silkworm Bombyx mori facilitate host resistance against the toxic effects of organophosphate insecticides; Comparative shotgun metagenomic data of the silkworm Bombyx mori gut microbiome; Biocontrol Potential of a Novel Endophytic Bacterium From Mulberry (Morus) Tree; Gut microbiota metabolic potential correlates with body size between mulberry‐feeding lepidopteran pest species. Representative work: Organophosphate insecticides that are heavily used in agriculture for pest control have caused growing environmental problems and public health concerns worldwide. Ironically, insecticide resistance develops quickly in major lepidopteran pests, partially via their microbial symbionts. To investigate the possible mechanisms by which the microbiota confers insecticide resistance to Lepidoptera, the model organism silkworm Bombyx mori (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae) was fed different antibiotics to induce gut dysbiosis (microbiota imbalance). Larvae treated with polymyxin showed a significantly lower survival rate when exposed to chlorpyrifos. Through high-throughput sequencing, we found that the abu Abstract Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) is a major insect order including important pollinators and agricultural pests, however their microbiomes are little studied. Here, using next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based shotgun metagenomics, we characterize both the biodiversity and functional potential of gut microbiota of a lepidopteran model insect, the silkworm Bombyx mori . Two metagenomes, including the standard inbred strain Dazao (P50) and an improved hybrid strain Qiufeng × Baiyu (QB) widely used in commercial silk production, were generated, containing 45,505,084 and 69,127,002 raw reads, respectively. Taxonomic analysis revealed that a total of 663 bacterial species were identif

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