<p class="first" id="d3817896e107">The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover, is a destructive
global crop pest. Control
of A. gossypii has relied heavily on the application of chemical insecticides. The
cotton aphid has developed resistance to numerous insecticides, including imidacloprid,
which has been widely used to control cotton pests in China since the 1990s. Our objective
was to investigate the potential role of UDP-glycosyltransferases (UGTs) in imidacloprid
resistance based on transcriptomic and proteomic analyses of field-originated imidacloprid-resistant
(IMI_R) and -susceptible (IMI_S) A. gossypii clones. The transcriptomic and proteomic
analyses revealed that 12 out of 512 differentially expressed genes and three out
of 510 differentially expressed proteins were predicted as UDP-glycosyltransferase
(UGT). Based on quantitative real-time PCR analysis, nine UGT genes, UGT343A4, UGT344A15,
UGT344A16, UGT344B4, UGT344C7, UGT344C9, UGT344N4, UGT 24541, and UGT7630, were up-regulated
in the IMI_R clone compared to the IMI_S clone. Meanwhile, UGT344A16, UGT344B4, UGT344C7,
and UGT344N4 were overexpressed at the protein level based on western blot analysis.
Furthermore, knockdown of UGT344B4 or UGT344C7 using RNA interference (RNAi) significantly
increased sensitivity to imidacloprid in the IMI_R clone. In conclusion, UGTs potentially
contributed to imidacloprid resistance in A. gossypii originating from cotton-growing
regions of China. These results provide insights into the way we study insecticide
resistance in cotton aphids.
</p>