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Video Q&A ViewAttendees 1

Organized Meeting

Korean Young Entomologists (KYE) On-Demand Presentations

Developing smart molecular insecticide targeting Mormon crickets (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)

On-Demand
On-Demand

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Hojun Song

    Associate Professor
    Texas A&M University
    College Station, Texas

In this study, we took the first steps towards developing RNAi methods for Mormon crickets as a potential alternative to traditional pesticides. To alleviate the lack of genomic resources, we first generated a de novo transcriptome of the Mormon cricket, which was used to identify target genes for developing RNAi. Based on dsRNA constructs of 11 target genes, we then characterized their RNAi efficiencies by injection and conduced qPCR experiments to quantify mRNA-level knockdown. We also characterized the time-course of RNAi response for the subset of the target genes. We demonstrated the presence of dsRNA-degrading enzymes that affected RNAi efficiency. We show that RNAi silencing is possible in the Mormon crickets, but more work needs to be done before it can effectively be used as a novel molecular pesticide for these pests.