Transcriptomic analysis of the insecticidal activities of methyl benzoate against red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) larvae

Abstract

Methyl benzoate (MB) is a common component of floral scents released by many plants. Recent research showed that MB was an alternative insecticide to control insect pests. However, the molecular mechanisms of insect pests in responses to MB are largely unknown, which limits the future applications of this promising insecticidal candidate. In this study, the total transcriptomic analysis for red flour beetle larvae after MB fumigation was performed. Of the 430 identified differentially expressed genes, 197 were upregulated and 233 were downregulated. GO and KEGG pathway enrichment were used to interpret gene classification/function and metabolic/signaling pathways, respectively. And we performed RT-qPCR to validate expressional profiles of identified DEGs. Genes that are involved in energy metabolism, xenobiotic metabolism, and digestive enzymes were shown to be differentially expressed, suggesting that MB have an impact on these physiological processes. This research will enrich our knowledge about the mechanisms of MB-fumigation response genes for stored-product pests. A better understanding of molecular response to MB will facilitate future applications to control stored-product pests.

Keywords:

• Tribolium castaneum
• methyl benzoate
• fumigation
• RNA-seq
• RT-qPCR

Ethics statement

The article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Patient consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Raw sequence reads were saved as FASTQ files and deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database under BioProject number PRJNA728199 with accession number, control: SRR14492015, SRR14492016, and SRR14492017, MB fumigation treatment: SRR18761692, SRR18761693, and SRR18761694.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by grants from young faculty startup foundation from Jiangsu University of Science and Technology (No.1182932003), the dual creative talents program of Jiangsu province (No.1184902002), Shanghai Municipal Commission of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Foundation (No.2021-02-08-00-12-F00799), Shanghai International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Foundation (No.19390743400), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.31871975).