Abstract
Insect-borne diseases, such as malaria, and plant pathogens, like the tobacco mosaic virus, are responsible for human deaths and poor crop yields in communities around the world. The use of insecticides has been one of the major tools in pest control. However, the development of insecticide resistance has been a major problem in the control of insect pest populations that threaten the health of both humans and plants. The overexpression of detoxification genes is thought to be one of the major mechanisms through which pests develop resistance to insecticides. Hundreds of research papers have explored how overexpressed detoxification genes increase the resistance status of insects to an insecticide in recent years. This study is, for the first time, a synthesis of these resistance and gene expression data aimed at (1) setting up an example for the application of meta-analysis in the investigation of the mechanisms of insecticide resistance and (2) seeking to determine if the overexpression detoxification genes are responsible for insecticide resistance in insect pests in general. A strong correlation of increased levels of insecticide resistance has been observed in tested insects with cytochrome P450 (CYP), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), and esterase gene superfamilies, confirming that the overexpression of detoxification genes is indeed involved in the insecticide resistance through the increased metabolism of insecticides of insects, including medically (e.g., mosquito and housefly) and agriculturally (e.g., planthopper and caterpillar) important insects.
Highlights
All these methods are routinely employed to control pest populations in an attempt to avoid production and monetary losses, insect-borne disease outbreaks, and other associated impacts. Of these various pest management strategies, the use of insecticides is still the most widely-used approach [i.e., roughly two million tons of pesticides being sprayed on insect pests in communities around the world every year (Sharma et al, 2019)] because of its immediate and rapid reduction of pest populations (Strode et al, 2012)
To fully understand the metabolic detoxification mechanisms conferred by the gene overexpression that are importantly involved in the insecticide resistance development in general, we quantitatively compared the gene expression between resistant and susceptible strains and its correlation by conducting, a literature search in Web of Science, PubMed, and AGRICOLA (Ovid) using the following search terms: “gene overexpression” AND “insecticide resistance” OR “pesticide resistance.”
Based on our search strategy and inclusion criteria, 68 published papers were selected and analyzed in this meta-analysis containing a total of 14 types of insecticides, the three major classes of insecticides are neonicotinoids (13 papers), organophosphates (7 papers), and pyrethroids (31 papers)
Summary
There are thought to be approximately five million insect species worldwide with ∼80% remaining to be discovered (Stork, 2018). Common pest management strategies include installing traps to monitor and control the density of pests (Baldacchino et al, 2015), rearing natural enemies to prey on the pests (Lazaro et al, 2015), or spraying insecticide All these methods are routinely employed to control pest populations in an attempt to avoid production and monetary losses, insect-borne disease outbreaks, and other associated impacts. Of these various pest management strategies, the use of insecticides is still the most widely-used approach [i.e., roughly two million tons of pesticides being sprayed on insect pests in communities around the world every year (Sharma et al, 2019)] because of its immediate and rapid reduction of pest populations (Strode et al, 2012). This study could be used as an example to inspire more researchers to use meta-analysis to answer more questions
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