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The dried body of  Mylabris cichorii  is well-known Chinese traditional medicine. The sesquiterpenoid cantharidin, which is secreted mostly by adult male beetles, has recently been used as an anti-cancer drug. However, little is known about the mechanisms of cantharidin biosynthesis. Furthermore, there is currently no genomic or transcriptomic information for  M .  cichorii . In this study, we performed  de novo  assembly transcriptome of  M .  cichorii  using the Illumina Hiseq2000. A single run produced 9.19 Gb of clean nucleotides comprising 29,247 sequences, including 23,739 annotated sequences (about 81%). We also constructed two expression profile libraries (20–25 day-old adult males and 20–25 day-old adult females) and discovered 2,465 significantly differentially-expressed genes. Putative genes and pathways involved in the biosynthesis of cantharidin were then characterized. We also found that cantharidin biosynthesis in  M .  cichorii  might only occur via the mevalonate (MVA) pathway, not via the methylerythritol 4-phosphate/deoxyxylulose 5-phosphate (MEP/DOXP) pathway or a mixture of these. Besides, we considered that cantharidin biosynthesis might be related to the juvenile hormone (JH) biosynthesis or degradation. The results of transcriptome and expression profiling analysis provide a comprehensive sequence resource for  M .  cichorii  that could facilitate the in-depth study of candidate genes and pathways involved in cantharidin biosynthesis, and may thus help to improve our understanding of the mechanisms of cantharidin biosynthesis in blister beetles.

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De Novo Transcriptome and Expression Profile Analysis to Reveal Genes and Pathways Potentially Involved in Cantharidin Biosynthesis in the Blister Beetle Mylabris cichorii