Laura M Boykin Background: Bemisia tabaci whiteflies are a global insect pest causing billions of dollars in damage each year, leaving farmers with low yields. In East Africa, whiteflies are superabundant and present on cassava plants throughout the year.
Whiteflies do not decrease in number in the hot dry seasons in East Africa, therefore, it has been suggested that the synthesis of Heat Shock Protein HSP may protect the whitefly from heat stress and other biotic factors.
In this study we used data sequence generated from individual whiteflies to assess variability and recombination of the HSP90 gene in members of the B.
Results: A total of 21 samples were sequenced on Illumina Hiseq and Hiseq These included eight genetic groups of B. An alignment of 21 HSP90 sequences was generated after mapping and de novo assembly.
_18204.jpg "Escort girls in Kibaha")
Recombination analysis was performed on an alignment of 27 HSP90 sequences we added an additional 6 sequences from GenBank. There were 18 recombination events detected in the HSP90 gene of the B. The phylogenetic analysis carried out on dataset without recombination events revealed a tree pattern with short terminal branches.
