Temperature-independent increase in the detoxifying enzyme activity of insecticide-resistant small brown planthoppers and Drosophila

Abstract

Abstract The populations of migrated small brown planthoppers (SBPHs) collected in Korea were reported to have higher insecticide resistance and percentages of viruliferous individuals than the populations of overwintering SBPHs. Therefore, the migrated SBPHs might survive after insecticide treatments and cause severe damage to rice plants. In this study, the changes in the biochemical properties of resistant SBPHs with temperature changes were investigated. The activities of detoxifying enzymes known to be involved in insecticide resistance showed no correlation with temperature, but the resistant strains had consistently higher detoxifying enzyme activities than the susceptible strains. Interestingly, the amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) increased with temperature in all strains. Chlorantraniliprole-resistant strains of Drosophila melanogaster were examined to investigate whether the phenomena observed in the resistant SBPHs were conserved in other insects with resistance to an insecticide with different modes of action. Similar to the resistant SBPHs, the resistant Drosophila also exhibited increased amounts of ROS and detoxifying enzyme activity compared to the control Drosophila. Also in the resistant Drosophila, only the ROS showed a temperature-dependent increase. Taken together, in addition to the involvement of increased activities of detoxifying enzymes, the resistant insects also had a temperature-dependent significant increase in ROS. Thus, the development of tools to induce ROS toxicity could lead to the development of new control methods to eliminate resistant insect strains.