Repellency, Toxicity, Gene Expression Profiling and In Silico Studies to Explore Insecticidal Potential of Essential Oil against .

In the current study, deterrent assay, contact bioassay, lethal concentration (LC) analysis and gene expression analysis were performed to reveal the repellent or insecticidal potential of oil against . oil demonstrated an excellent deterrence index (0.8) at 2 g/L after 48 h. The oil demonstrated a pronounced contact mortality rate (72%) at a dose of 4 g/L after 24 h. Probit analysis was performed to estimate LC-values of oil (40%) against (LC = 0.115 g/L and LC = 0.37 g/L respectively) after 24 h. Furthermore, to probe changes in gene expression due to oil contact in , the expression of , genes were examined at doses of LC and LC. Four out of the five selected genes-, and -showed upregulation at LC, whereas, gene showed maximum upregulation expression at LC. Finally, the major components of oil (terpinen-4-ol) were docked and MD simulated into the related proteins of the selected genes to explore ligand⁻protein modes of interactions and changes in gene expression. The results show that oil has remarkable insecticidal and deterrent effects and also has the ability to affect the reproduction and development in by binding to proteins.