An official website of the United States government.

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites always use a .gov or .mil domain. Before sharing sensitive information online, make sure you’re on a .gov or .mil site by inspecting your browser’s address (or “location”) bar.

This site is also protected by an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate that’s been signed by the U.S. government. The https:// means all transmitted data is encrypted — in other words, any information or browsing history that you provide is transmitted securely.

Heliothis virescens

Summary
Resource Type
Organism
Genus
Heliothis
Species
virescens
Common Name
tobacco budworm
Description

Heliothis virescens, is a polyphagous Lepidopteran species found throughout North, Central, and South America. It is commonly known as the tobacco budworm and develops on tobacco, as well as cotton, soybeans, and garbanzo beans in its larval stages. Historical pressure by Heliothis virescens, a difficult to manage pest due to its ability to adapt to insecticides, has shaped current cotton cultivation practices in the southern United States. Today, much of the cotton grown in the United States is genetically modified to express Bt toxins, in part due to the efficacy of these toxins against Heliothis virescens. The genome assembly of Heliothis virescens was produced as part of a USDA-funded project to determine how Lepidopteran pests adapt to the widespread distribution of Bt-expressing corn and cotton in the landscape.

Publication
Fritz ML, DeYonke AM, Papanicolaou A, Micinski S, Westbrook J, Gould F. Contemporary evolution of a Lepidopteran species, Heliothis virescens, in response to modern agricultural practices.. Molecular ecology. 2018 01; 27(1):167-181.
Organism Image
Image Credit
Tobacco budworm (Heliothis virescens) by Joseph Berger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Analysis
NameProgramDate Constructed
Heliothis virescens genome assembly K63_refined_pacbio 1 GCA_002382865.1PBJelly v. 2016; manual curation v. 2016; SOAPdenovo v. 2.04Sep 27th, 2017
Heliothis virescens annotations GCA_002382865.1_K63_refined_pacbio_genomic 1JAMgNov 17th, 2017
Heliothis virescens RNA-SeqTophatFeb 27th, 2018
Functional annotation of Heliothis virescens H virescens OGS1AgBase functional annotation pipelineJun 8th, 2022
Assembly Stats
Contig N50
NA
Scaffold N50
102124
GC Content
36.69
Other Information
Community Contact
Megan Fritz|mfritz13@umd.edu
Links