Characteristic and Functional Study of , a Gene Related to Female Fertility in .

The () gene acts in concert with () at the end of the sex determination hierarchy to control somatic sexual differentiation in . Here, we report the homolog in () with differential splicing events. Four isoforms were found in adults, including two sex-specific transcripts ( and ). Knockdown of had no measurable effects on female morphological phenotypes but reduced the expression of the gene and resulted in the production of significantly fewer eggs, a lower eclosion rate, and a shorter body size of female progeny in comparison with control females. These results increase our understanding of the genes underlying sex determination in and reveal a potential target for RNA interference-based pest management.