Cloning and Expression Analysis of Glutathione S-transferase Genes from Agrilus zanthoxylumi (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)

Abstract Host adaptability and insecticide resistance of insects are closely related to detoxification metabolism-related proteins. In this study, the distribution and expression of glutathione s-transferase (GST) in Agrilus zanthoxylumi Hou (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) were studied. Based on the transcriptome data of A. zanthoxylumi, five GST genes were screened and cloned. The transcription levels of the five GST genes in male and female adult head, thorax, abdomen, legs and wings were determined by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) in order to provide a theoretical basis for the functional study of the gene. The results showed that all five GST genes had highly conserved N-terminal domain or C-terminal domain, belonging to two subfamilies of Delta or Sigma. The phylogenetic tree results showed that the evolutionary relationship of GST genes between A. zanthoxylumi, Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), and Tenebrio molitor Linnaeus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) was the closest; RT-qPCR results showed that the five GST genes were differentially expressed in different tissues and sexes, and its expression level in each tissue of the male was higher than that of the female as a whole, especially in the head. The results of this study can provide basic data for analyzing the mechanism of detoxification resistance of A. zanthoxylumi and provide reference for its biological control and resistance research.