The Cotton-Insect Interactive Transcriptome – Molecular Elements Involved in Plant-Insect Interactions

The chewing insect boll weevil larvae (Anthonomus grandis) and phloem feeding insect Bemisia tabaci cause the loss of diverse cotton products. The pink cotton bollworm Pectinophora gossypiella is a model organism for insect responses to Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins, but the molecular mechanism of its tolerance was studied to a lesser extent. The increased quantity of secondary metabolites, namely, natural insecticides in plants is associated with abiotic stresses such as treatment with NaCl. The role of plants in mediating the interaction between herbivores and natural enemies of herbivores was demonstrated to be a critically dynamic phenomenon. To better control the insects, a subunit of mitochondrial complex I NDUFV2 that catalyzes NADH dehydrogenation in respiratory chain was suppressed by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). The novel transcriptome approaches as vital applications in insect research should be very helpful to shed light on details of the molecular signatures and their interactions during insect-plant interaction.