Centre for Environment and Life Sciences, CSIRO Agriculture and Food, Floreat, WA, 6014, Australia.
Curtin University, Centre for Crop and Disease Management, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jan 31;10(1):1604. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-58442-4.
Aphids are important agricultural pests causing major yield losses worldwide. Since aphids can rapidly develop resistance to chemical insecticides there is an urgent need to find alternative aphid pest management strategies. Despite the economic importance of bluegreen aphid (Acyrthosiphon kondoi), very few genetic resources are available to expand our current understanding and help find viable control solutions. An artificial diet is a desirable non-invasive tool to enable the functional characterisation of genes in bluegreen aphid and discover candidate target genes for future use in RNA interference (RNAi) mediated crop protection against aphids. To date no artificial diet has been developed for bluegreen aphid, so we set out to develop a suitable diet by testing and optimising existing diets. Here, we describe an artificial diet for rearing bluegreen aphid and also provide a proof of concept for the supplementation of the diet with RNAi molecules targeting the salivary gland transcript C002 and gap gene hunchback, resulting in bluegreen aphid mortality which has not yet been documented in this species. Managing this pest, for example via RNAi delivery through artificial feeding will be a major improvement to test bluegreen aphid candidate target genes for future pest control and gain significant insights into bluegreen aphid gene function.
蚜虫是重要的农业害虫，在全球范围内造成了重大的产量损失。由于蚜虫可以迅速对化学杀虫剂产生抗药性，因此迫切需要寻找替代的蚜虫害虫管理策略。尽管蓝绿蚜虫（Acyrthosiphon kondoi）具有重要的经济意义，但几乎没有可用的遗传资源来扩展我们目前的认识并帮助找到可行的控制解决方案。人工饲料是一种理想的非侵入性工具，可以实现蓝绿蚜虫基因的功能特征分析，并发现未来用于 RNA 干扰（RNAi）介导的抗蚜虫作物保护的候选靶基因。迄今为止，尚未为蓝绿蚜虫开发出人工饲料，因此我们着手通过测试和优化现有饲料来开发合适的饲料。在这里，我们描述了一种用于饲养蓝绿蚜虫的人工饲料，并提供了一个概念验证，即在饮食中补充针对唾液腺转录本 C002 和缺口基因 hunchback 的 RNAi 分子，导致蓝绿蚜虫死亡，而在该物种中尚未记录到这种情况。例如，通过人工喂养进行 RNAi 传递来管理这种害虫，将是测试未来害虫控制的蓝绿蚜虫候选靶基因的重大改进，并深入了解蓝绿蚜虫的基因功能。
