Sterile insect release technique (SIT) is effective for eradicating quarantine insects including various tephritid fruit flies. When SIT is used for fruit flies, it is challenging to remove females from sterile males due to oviposition-associated piercing damage. This study developed a sex transition technique by feeding double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) specific to a sex-determining gene, Transformer-2 (Zs-Tra2) of the striped fruit fly, Zeugodacus scutellata. Zs-Tra2 is homologous to other fruit fly orthologs. It is highly expressed in female adults. RNA interference (RNAi) of Zs-Tra2 by injecting or feeding its specific dsRNA to larvae significantly increased male ratio. Recombinant Escherichia coli cells expressing dsRNA specific to Zs-Tra2 were prepared and used to feed larvae to suppress Zs-Tra2 gene expression levels. When these recombinant bacteria were fed to larvae during the entire feeding stage, the test population was significantly male-biased. Some females treated with such recombinant E. coli exhibited mosaic morphological characters such as the presence of male-specific abdominal setae in females. This study proposes a novel technique by feeding dsRNA specific to Transformer-2 to reduce female production during mass-rearing of tephritid males for SIT.

中文翻译：

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通过饲喂对Transformer-2有特异性的dsRNA，成年男性对条纹果蝇Zeugodacus scutellata的成年生产。

无菌昆虫释放技术（SIT）可有效根除包括各种蝇类实蝇在内的检疫昆虫。当SIT用于果蝇时，由于与产卵有关的刺穿损伤，要从不育的雄性中除去雌性是一项挑战。这项研究通过喂食对条纹果蝇Zeugodacus scutellata的性别决定基因Transformer-2（Zs-Tra2）具有特异性的双链RNA（dsRNA），开发了一种性别过渡技术。Zs-Tra2与其他果蝇直系同源物同源。它在成年女性中高度表达。通过将Zs-Tra2的特异性dsRNA注入或喂入幼虫，RNA干扰（RNAi）显着提高了雄性比例。重组体制备表达对Zs-Tra2特异的dsRNA的大肠杆菌细胞，并用于喂养幼虫以抑制Zs-Tra2基因表达水平。当在整个饲养阶段将这些重组细菌饲喂到幼虫时，测试种群明显受到男性偏见。用这种重组大肠杆菌处理的某些雌性表现出镶嵌形态特征，例如雌性中存在雄性特定的腹部刚毛。这项研究提出了一种新技术，该技术通过喂食Transformer-2特异的dsRNA来减少成年雌雄激素在SIT的大量繁殖期间的雌性产量。