Heat shock protein and Cathepsin B genes play important roles in cadmium stress response in whitefly Bemisia tabaci
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Cadmium, a highly toxic heavy metal pollutant, rapidly accumulates and persists in organisms including the globally distributed agricultural pest Bemisia tabaci . While previous studies established that cadmium exposure increases whitefly mortality and reduces abundance of the beneficial endosymbiont Rickettsia , the underlying mechanisms remain poorly characterized. This study reveals cadmium's effects on Bemisia tabaci : cadmium stress significantly stimulated oviposition in B. tabaci females (+47.97–57.09 %) but markedly reduced egg hatchability (−34.94 %, p < 0.01) and Rickettsia abundance (13.38 % of controls, p < 0.01), concurrently inducing pathological nuclear pyknosis in tissue cells. Transcriptome profiling identified 529 differentially expressed genes, with enrichment analyses revealing pronounced regulation of heat shock protein genes ( BtHSP 1 / BtHSP 2 ) and cysteine cathepsin genes ( BtCTSB 1 / BtCTSB 2 ). Targeted RNAi silencing demonstrated that BtHSP 1 knockdown significantly increased mortality in healthy adults (2.57-fold vs. dsEGFP controls, p < 0.01) and exacerbated cadmium-induced mortality and nuclear pyknosis. Conversely, BtCTSB 2 silencing conferred protection against cadmium toxicity, reducing mortality by 63.27 % (p < 0.01) and alleviating cellular damage. Notably, BtHSP 2 and BtCTSB 1 silencing specifically enhanced oviposition (+77 % and +67 % respectively, p < 0.05). These results establish BtHSP 1 as a cadmium-sensitivity factor and BtCTSB 2 as a cadmium-resistance determinant, revealing their antagonistic roles in stress response and suggesting novel RNAi-based strategies for whitefly control in cadmium-contaminated agroecosystems. Environmental implication Heavy metal pollution is detrimental to the health of humans and ecosystems. Heavy metals can accumulate in insects through the food chain and food web, poisoning them and impacting pest control strategies in farmland. This study uncovers the biological and physiological impacts of exposure to the heavy metal cadmium on the broadly distributed agriculture pest Bemisia tabaci . By elucidating key molecular responses, this research paves the way for RNAi-based strategies to control whiteflies in contaminated agricultural environments, highlighting the interconnected challenges of pollution control and sustainable pest management.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".