Figure 2.

The expression patterns of TmSpz4 gene in developmental and tissue of T. molitor. The developmental expression patterns of TmSpz4 in mealworm at the young larval (YL), late larval (LL), pre-pupal (PP), 1–7-day-old pupal (P1–7), and 1–5-day-old adult (A1–5) stages were examined (A). In each experiment, RNA extracted from 20 individuals was used to synthesize cDNA. In larvae, TmSpz4 expression gradually increased from the YL to the PP stage. In the pupae, the highest expression was observed at the 4-day-old pupal stage. In adults, there was no difference in TmSpz4 expression from day 2 to day 5. Tissue-specific expression patterns of TmSpz4 were also investigated in late larvae (B) and five-day-old adults (C). Hemocytes (HC), gut, fat body (FB), Malpighian tubules (MT), integument (INT) (for late instar larvae and adults), and testes (TE) and ovaries (OV) (for adults) were dissected and collected from 20 late larvae and 5-day-old adults. T. molitor 60S ribosomal protein L27a (TmL27a) was included as an endogenous control to normalize RNA levels among samples. The data are the means of three biological replicates. One-way ANOVA and Tukey’s multiple range test at 95% confidence level (p < 0.05) were performed and used to determine the level of significance of differences. The graph indicated by the same letter (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, fg) are not significantly different by Tukey’s multiple range (p < 0.05).