Fig. 6

RNAi knockdown of five receptor-related genes and a gut repair gene in G. mellonella midgut led to target-specific silencing. Abundance of transcripts corresponding to prohibitin, GLTP, α-amylase, ADAM, UDP-GT and arylphorin in insects silenced (si) with these target genes were analyzed by qPCR. Fourth-instar larvae were force-fed with dsRNA-expressing E. coli HT115 cells and inoculated for 24 h. Insects orally ingested with GFP dsRNA and PBS were used as the non-native and negative control, respectively. G. mellonella 18S rRNA and EF-1α genes were used as the internal reference. Each bar represents the mean fold change value ± SE of qPCR runs in five biological and three technical replicates. Significant differential expression is indicated by different letters (P < 0.01, Tukey’s HSD test)