Molecular Characterization of Endosymbiont in Rhyzopertha dominica (Fabricius) and Tribolium castaneum (Herbst.) Populations of South India.

Abstract

Insects have adapted to a wide variety of diets. However, in case of stored grain insect pests, majority of them infest all most all grains, processed food articles, can attack a wide variety of stored foods, seeds materials, dried fruit, drugs, cork, timber and paper products. Such a flexible feeding habits have been brought to insects, at least partially, by the endosymbiont they harbor. To know their (endosymbiont) status in 2 major stored grain insect pests, the molecular characterizations was done in 30 and 35 different geographical populations of R. dominica and T. castaneum, respectively with FD1 and RP2 (16S rDNA primers) specific primers. Polymerase chain reaction amplification using the respective 16S rDNA primers and sequencing of the respective amplicon revealed the presence of Non-diaspididae associated bacteria in R. dominica and gammaproteobacteria in T. castaneum. Observed bacterial phyla in these two insects are commonly found in beetles and termites and are reported to involve in digestion process.