The destructive agricultural pest oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) (Diptera: Tephritidae), has been causing huge damage to the fruits and vegetable industry. Although many pertinent studies have been conducted on B. dorsalis, the functions of fat body still remain largely unknown. To this end, the comparative transcriptome analysis between fat body and carcass was performed in an attempt to provide insights into functions of fat body of B. dorsalis in the present study. A total of 1431 upregulated and 2511 downregulated unigenes were discovered in the fat body vs carcass comparison, respectively. The enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEG) revealed that most of the enriched pathways were related to metabolism. The reliability of DEG analysis was validated by qRT-PCR measurements of 12 genes in starch and sucrose metabolism pathway, including the trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (BdTPS) which was highly expressed in eggs, 5 d-old adults, and fat body. The RNAi of BdTPS significantly affected trehalose and chitin metabolism, larval growth, and larva-pupa metamorphosis. Collectively, the findings in this study enriched our understanding of fat body functions in metabolism and demonstrated the indispensable roles of BdTPS in trehalose-related physiological pathways.
Keywords: Bactrocera dorsalis; RNA interference; fat body; transcriptome; trehalose-phosphate synthase.