Aerobic Bacterial Community of the Rice Striped Stem Borer: A Step towards Finding Bacterial Candidates for Paratransgenesis and RNAi Control

It is recognized that insects have close associations with a wide variety of microorganisms, which play a vital role in the insect's ecology and evolution. The rice striped stem borer, Chilo suppressalis, has economic importance at the global level. With the development of insecticide resistance, it is widely recognized that control of this pest is likely to need new tools that are not available today. Here, we focus on the aerobic bacterial community of the pest, to seek candidates for paratransgenesis or RNAi biocontrol of C. suppressalis. Culture-dependent PCR-direct sequencing was used to characterize the midgut bacterial communities of C.suppressalis at different life stages, collected in northern Iran, both from rice plants and from weeds on which the insect Int J Plant Anim Environ Sci 2021; 11 (3): 485-502 DOI: 10.26502/ijpaes.202117 International Journal of Plant, Animal and Environmental Sciences Vol. 11 No. 3 – September 2021 486 feeds. Our results show that the predominant genera of the Firmicutes and Proteobacteria phyla were Bacillus, Enterobacter and Klebsiella in all life stages, and they displayed differences in abundance. The high levels of B. subtilis and Enterobacter found in C. suppressalis suggests their potential utility for paratransgenesis and RNAi approaches to control this pest.