Abstract
BackgroundThe brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is the most devastating rice pest in many areas throughout Asia. The reproductive system of female N. lugens consists of a pair of ovaries with 24-33 ovarioles per ovary in most individuals which determine its fecundity. The fork head (Fox) is a transcriptional regulatory molecule, which regulates and controls many physiological processes in eukaryotes. The Fox family has several subclasses and members, and several Fox factors have been reported to be involved in regulating fecundity.ResultsWe have cloned a fork head gene in N. lugens. The full-length cDNA of NlFoxA is 1789 bp and has an open reading frame of 1143 bp, encoding a protein of 380 amino acids. Quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) and Reverse Transcription- PCR (RT-PCR) analysis revealed that NlFoxA mRNA was mainly expressed in the fat body, midgut, cuticle and Malpighian tube, and was expressed continuously with little change during all the developmental stages. NlFoxA belongs to the FoxA subfamily of the Fox transcription factors. Knockdown of NlFoxA expression by RNAi using artificial diet containing double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) significantly decreased the number of offspring and impacted the development of ovaries. ELISA and Western blot analyses showed that feeding-based RNAi of NlFoxA gene also resulted in decreased expression of vitellogenin (Vg) protein.ConclusionNlFoxA plays an important role in regulation of fecundity and development of ovaries in the BPH via regulating vitellogenin expression.
Highlights
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is the most devastating rice pest in many areas throughout Asia
Isolation and characterization of NlFoxA cDNA Based on the conserved sequence of fork head from T. castaneum, D. melanogaster and B. mori, a 434-bp cDNA fragment was obtained by homologous cloning using cDNA from the 2nd day of brachypterous female adults as a template
Sequence analysis showed that the deduced amino acid sequence of the cDNA fragment had 41-45% identity to the corresponding region of FoxA from T. castaneum, D. melanogaster and B. mori
Summary
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is the most devastating rice pest in many areas throughout Asia. The reproductive system of female N. lugens consists of a pair of ovaries with 24-33 ovarioles per ovary in most individuals which determine its fecundity. The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, is a major pest to rice production in many areas of Asia. It shows two wing forms, long (macropterous) and short (brachypterous) ones, in its adult stage. The macropterous adults possess the ability to migrate across long distances, while the brachypterous adults exemplify strong reproductive capacities. The macropterous adults migrate long distances every year to the rice-growing areas of China, Japan and Korea, resulting in severe infestations [3,4], causing hopperburn and leading to reductions in rice yields. The BPH ingests nutriments from the phloem of rice plants with its stylet, causing
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