Abstract
The sweet potato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (G.) biotype B (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), is one of the most economically important pest, by being a dreaded vector of Geminiviruses, and also causes direct damage to the crops by sucking phloem sap. Glutathione S-transferase (GST) is a large family of multifunctional enzymes that play pivotal roles in the detoxification of secondary allelochemical produced by the host plants and in insecticide resistance, thus regulates insect growth and development. The objective of this study is to show the potential of RNA interference (RNAi) in the management of B. tabaci. RNAi is a sequence-specific gene silencing mechanism induced by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) which holds tremendous potential in pest management. In this regard, we sequenced the GST from B. tabaci and synthesized approximately 500-bp dsRNA from the above and delivered through diet to B. tabaci. Real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) showed that continuous application of dsGST at 1.0, 0.5, and 0.25 μg/μl reduced mRNA expression levels for BtGST by 77.43, 64.86, and 52.95 % which resulted in mortality by 77, 59, and 40 %, respectively, after 72 h of application. Disruption of BtGST expression will enable the development of novel strategies in pest management and functional analysis of vital genes in B. tabaci.
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Acknowledgments
We thank ICAR, New Delhi, for funding the project on 12th Plan Out Reach Program on Sucking Pests (ORP-SP). This work was supported by the Out Reach Program on Sucking Pests (ORP-SP) of Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), India. Our sincere thanks are due to the Director, IIHR, Bangalore, for encouragement and the necessary facilities. Finally, we are very grateful to Dr. V. V. Ramamurthy (Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi) for his continuous support and suggestions over the course of this work.
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Supplementary Figure 1
SignalP prediction for peptide motif of sigma class GST sequences from Bemisia tabaci. No signal peptide motif was identified, which was evident from the absence of cleavage site. (GIF 178 kb)
Supplementary Table 1
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Asokan, R., Rebijith, K.B., Roopa, H.K. et al. Non-Invasive Delivery of dsGST Is Lethal to the Sweet Potato Whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (G.) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae). Appl Biochem Biotechnol 175, 2288–2299 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-1437-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-014-1437-6