New evidence for the presence of the telomere motif (TTAGG) n in the family Reduviidae and its absence in the families Nabidae and Miridae (Hemiptera, Cimicomorpha)

Snejana Grozeva; Boris A Anokhin; Nikolay Simov; Valentina G Kuznetsova

doi:10.3897/CompCytogen.v13i3.36676

New evidence for the presence of the telomere motif (TTAGG) _n in the family Reduviidae and its absence in the families Nabidae and Miridae (Hemiptera, Cimicomorpha)

Comp Cytogenet. 2019 Sep 20;13(3):283-295. doi: 10.3897/CompCytogen.v13i3.36676. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Snejana Grozeva¹, Boris A Anokhin², Nikolay Simov³, Valentina G Kuznetsova²

Affiliations

¹ Cytotaxonomy and Evolution Research Group, Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1000, 1 Tsar Osvoboditel, Bulgaria Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Sofia Bulgaria.
² Department of Karyosystematics, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 199034, Universitetskaya nab., 1, Russia Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg Russia.
³ National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1000, 1 Tsar Osvoboditel, Bulgaria National Museum of Natural History, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Sofia Bulgaria.

Abstract

Male karyotype and meiosis in four true bug species belonging to the families Reduviidae, Nabidae, and Miridae (Cimicomorpha) were studied for the first time using Giemsa staining and FISH with 18S ribosomal DNA and telomeric (TTAGG)_n probes. We found that Rhynocoris punctiventris (Herrich-Schäffer, 1846) and R. iracundus (Poda, 1761) (Reduviidae: Harpactorinae) had 2n = 28 (24 + X₁X₂X₃Y), whereas Nabis sareptanus Dohrn, 1862 (Nabidae) and Horistus orientalis (Gmelin, 1790) (Miridae) had 2n = 34 (32 + XY) and 2n = 32 (30 + XY), respectively. FISH for 18S rDNA revealed hybridization signals on a sex chromosome, the X or the Y, in H. orientalis, on both X and Y chromosomes in N. sareptanus, and on two of the four sex chromosomes, Y and one of the Xs, in both species of Rhynocoris Hahn, 1834. The results of FISH with telomeric probes support with confidence the absence of the "insect" telomere motif (TTAGG)_n in the families Nabidae and Miridae and its presence in both species of genus Rhynocoris of the Reduviidae, considered as a basal family of Cimicomorpha. Increasing evidence reinforces the hypothesis of the loss of the canonical "insect" telomere motif (TTAGG)_n by at least four cimicomorphan families, Nabidae, Miridae, Tingidae, and Cimicidae, for which data are currently available.

Keywords: Heteroptera; Horistus orientalis; Nabis sareptanus; R. iracundus; Rhynocoris punctiventris; TTAGG-FISH.