Functional Characterization of Target Genes Associated with Insecticide Resistance of the Green Peach Aphid, Myzus persicae.

Identifying genes responsive to insecticide treatment is the first step towards understanding the mechanism(s) of insecticide resistance and the development of effective insecticides against economic insect pests such as the Green peach aphid (GPA). Functional and Reverse Genetics approaches such as the RNA interference (RNAi) technology can be used to assess the possible involvement of genes whose expression is associated with an insecticide treatment. For GPA, this can be done by comparing the behavior and development of the insect following RNAi of a putative gene associated with insecticide treatment and exposure of the RNAi-treated insects to lethal doses of insecticides. In a case where knockdown of a gene or genes increases the susceptibility of RNAi-treated populations compared to controls, the target gene may have a direct role in the development of resistance to the insecticide or the gene may be involved in other metabolic processes that may be required for resilience against the insecticide.