Molecular identification of glutathione S-transferase genes and their potential roles in insecticides susceptibility of Grapholita molesta

Grapholita molesta is one kind of serious fruit-boring pests in the world, which caused huge economic losses to the fruit industry including pear and apple. The heavy usage of synthetic insecticides resulted in different degrees of resistance of G. molesta to some commonly used insecticides. However, the tolerance mechanisms of G. molesta to insecticides are still unclear. Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) belong to the superfamily of detoxifying enzymes and mainly play important roles in detoxification metabolism and insecticide susceptibility of insects. In this study, we first evaluated the toxicity of three insecticides including emamectin benzoate, chlorantraniliprole and lambda-cyhalothrin on G. molesta at different developmental stages. Synergism study showed that the susceptibility of G. molesta larvae to these three insecticides obviously increased when the enzyme activity of GST was inhibited by diethyl maleate compared with the controls. Next, we screened out six GmGST genes which are upregulated after insecticides treatment from a total of 21 GmGST genes and analysed their sequence characteristics and expression profiles. RNAi and bioassay results further revealed that the mortality of 5th instar larvae significantly increased after exposure to LC30 of emamectin benzoate, chlorantraniliprole and lambda-cyhalothrin when silencing of GmGSTo2, GmGSTs1 and GmGSTz1 compared with the controls. In conclusion, this study indicated that GmGSTo2, GmGSTs1 and GmGSTz1 play important roles in insecticides susceptibility of G. molesta to three commonly used insecticides, which is significance for its future integrated management.