Am. J. Primatol. 75:450-463, 2013. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.”
“Ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi) is a sequence-specific gene silencing mechanism induced by double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). Recently, RNAi has gained popularity as a reverse genetics tool owing to its tremendous potential in insect pest management, which Selleck HKI-272 includes Helicoverpa armigera. However, its efficiency is mainly governed by dsRNA concentration, frequency of application, target gene, etc. Therefore, to obtain

a robust RNAi response in H. armigera, we evaluated various concentrations of dsRNA and its frequency of applications delivered through diet in silencing a midgut gene, chymotrypsin and a non-midgut gene, juvenile hormone acid methyl transferase (jhamt) of H. armigera. The extent BI2536 of target gene silencing was determined by employing reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Our study revealed four significant findings: (i) single application of dsRNA elicited a delayed and transient silencing, while multiple applications resulted in early and persistent silencing of the above genes; (ii) silencing of the non-midgut gene (jhamt) through diet delivered dsRNA revealed prevalence of systemic silencing probably due to communication

of silencing signals in this pest; (iii) the extent of silencing of chymotrypsin was positively correlated with dsRNA concentration and was negatively correlated with jhamt; (iv) interestingly, over-expression (15-18 folds) of an upstream gene, farnesyl diphosphate synthase (fpps), in juvenile hormone (JH) biosynthetic pathway at higher concentrations of jhamt dsRNA was the plausible reason Proteasomal inhibitor for lesser silencing of jhamt. This study provides an insight into RNAi response of target genes, which is essential for RNAi design and implementation as a pest management strategy.”
“Drosophila antonietae is a cactophilic species that is found in the mesophilic forest of the Parana’-Paraguay river basin and in the dunes of the South Atlantic coast of Brazil. Although the genetic structure of the Parana’-Paraguay river basin

populations has already been established, the relationship between these populations and those on the Atlantic coast is controversial. In this study, we compared 33 repetitive units of pBuM-2 satellite DNA isolated from individuals from 8 populations of D. antonietae in these geographic regions, including some populations found within a contact zone with the closely related D. serido. The pBuM-2 sequences showed low interpopulational variability. This result was interpreted as a consequence of both gene flow among the populations and unequal crossing over promoting homogenization of the tandem arrays. The results presented here, together with those of previous studies, highlight the use of pBuM-2 for solving taxonomic conflicts within the D.