Table 6.

Comparison of Phenotypes observed in T. castaneum and D. melanogaster

Gene	Tribolium castaneum	Drosophila melanogaster
Trachealess	Final instar larvae were healthy, fed and grew until four days after injection and entered quiescent stage. After that they became sluggish and died during the quiescent stage.	Is required for tubulogenesis during embryonic stage (Isaac and Andrew, 1996). Trachealess mutants display no trachea and requires for tracheal and salivary gland development (Parrish et al., 2000). Silencing the gene using RNAi caused defects in muscle development and dendrite morphogenesis during the embryonic stage (Parrish et al., 2000).
Tango	Tango injected larvae were dead during quiescent stage similar to the trachealess injected larvae. Tango and trachealess injected larvae would have been dead due to the improper functioning of major systems such as tracheal and nervous system.	Tango mutants show central nervous system midline and tracheal defects during embryonic stage (Jiang and Crews, 2003). RNAi of tango resulted in reduced arborization of dendritic neurons, defects in muscle and dendrite morphogenesis during embryonic stage (Parrish et al., 2000).
Spineless	Most of the dsRNA injected larvae died during the pupal stage. Spineless seems to play a key role during adult development in Tribolium similar to its role in Drosophila as spineless mutants showed severe abnormalities in the adult flies compared to the other stages.	Spineless mutants display transformation of distal antennae to leg, reduction in size of bristles and deletion of distal leg structures in adults (Duncan et al., 1998). Severe loss of function mutation resulted in amplification of sex combs on first leg in adult flies (Kuzin et al., 1997). Plays a key role for establishing retinal mosaic required for color vision (Wernet et al., 2006). Necessary for diversification and dendrite morphology of Drosophila dendritic arborization neurons during all stages of fly (Kim et al., 2006).
SRC	Larval growth is blocked and the larvae did not reach critical weight to undergo molt to the next stage. The phenotypes observed is similar to the SRC-3 knock-out mice (Wang et al., 2006; Xu et al., 2000) and the HLH domain of TcSRC is more closely related to vertebrate SRC rather than to DmTaiman.	Mutations in taiman caused defects in migration of specific follicle cells and border cells in ovary (Bai et al., 2000).
Met	Single homologue of Met is present. Silencing of Met during early stage beetle larvae has lead to precocious metamorphosis (Konopova and Jindra, 2007). Pre-mature development of adult structures was observed during larval-pupal metamorphosis in Met RNAi insects (Parthasarathy et al., 2008).	Two homologues of Met are present (Met & GCE). Met mutants showed increase resistance to JH or its analogue, methoprene (Wilson and Fabian, 1986). Met mutant flies are viable (Wilson and Ashok, 1998).
Hypoxia	Most of the dsRNA injected insects died during the larval stage and a few died during the pupal stage. Some of the larvae that were able to develop into pupae showed problems in wing development and the wings were shorter and did not cover the abdomen.	Regulates responses to decreased oxygen concentrations. Plays an important role in tracheal outgrowth during oxygen deprived conditions (Lavista-Llanos, 2002).
E(spl)mga- mma1	Some of the injected larvae died during quiescent stage. Pupae developed from E(spl)mgamma1 dsRNA injected larvae showed defects in wing development and development was arrested during pupal stage. Wings were shorter and did not fold properly. As this gene is expressed in wing imaginal discs, silencing of this gene would have lead to the formation of improper wings during the pupal stage.	Plays an important role in Notch signaling pathway (Lecourtois and Schweisguth, 1995; Bailey and Posakony, 1995). Loss of function results in neural hyperplasia and cell death (Knust et al., 1987). Is required for the segregation of a single sensory organ precursor in wing morphogenesis (de celis et al, 1996). E(spl) complex of genes show a distinct pattern of expression in wing imaginal discs (Jenning et al., 1995).