Gene expression profiles in Japanese pine sawyer,Monochamus alternatus exposed to a sublethal dose of imidacloprid

The japanese pine sawyer,monochamus alternatus hope (coleoptera: cerambycidae) is a serious pest management concern in stands of pines. neonicotinoids are classes of insecticides known to selectively target insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. imidacloprid was introduced as the first commercially available product from the neonicotinoid class of insecticides. in order to understand how m. alternatus reacts toxicologically to imidacloprid,transcriptional profiling of m. alternatus larvae exposed to a sublethal dose of imidacloprid were monitored using a specific 60-mer oligonucleotide microarray derived from a cdna library. treatment of m. alternatus with imidacloprid resulted in a large number of differentially expressed genes,principally associated with metabolic pathways and stress responses. a total of 359 unique genes were found to vary at least twofold in terms of accumulation. of these 359 genes,41 were upregulated,and 318 were downregulated. a gene ontology enrichment analysis reflected a broad spectrum of the analyzed transcriptome. our study will assist in a further understanding of networks linking imidacloprid and its potential targets. identifying the molecular mechanisms of toxicity by imidacloprid is necessary for its future use for controlling m. alternatus and other lepidoptera insects. copyright © 2015 zoological society of pakistan.