PHF7, a novel male gene influences female fecundity and population growth in Nilaparvata lugens Stål (Hemiptera: Delphacidae).

PHF7 exhibits male-specific expression in early germ cells, germline stem cells and spermatogonia in insects, and its expression promotes spermatogenesis in germ cells when they are present in a male soma. However, the influence of male-specific PHF7 on female reproductive biology via mating remains unclear. Thus, we investigated the potential impacts of male PHF7, existed in seminal fluid of Nilaparvata lugens (NlPHF7), on fecundity and population growth via mating.

Suppressing male spermatogenesis-associated protein 5-like gene expression reduces vitellogenin gene expression and fecundity in Nilaparvata lugens Stål.

In our previous study with the brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, triazophos (tzp) treatments led to substantial up-regulation of a male spermatogenesis-associated protein 5-like gene (NlSPATA5) compared to untreated controls. Mating with tzp-treated males significantly increased fecundity (as numbers of eggs laid), relative to females mated with untreated males. Because SPATA5 acts in mammalian sperm development and is expressed in testes, we posed the hypothesis that NlSPATA5 occurs in BPH seminal fluid and it operates in fecundity via mating.

Silencing a sugar transporter gene reduces growth and fecundity in the brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) (Hemiptera: Delphacidae).

The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens, sugar transporter gene 6 (Nlst6) is a facilitative glucose/fructose transporter (often called a passive carrier) expressed in midgut that mediates sugar transport from the midgut lumen to hemolymph. The influence of down regulating expression of sugar transporter genes on insect growth, development, and fecundity is unknown. Nonetheless, it is reasonable to suspect that transporter-mediated uptake of dietary sugar is essential to the biology of phloem-feeding insects.