Insecticide resistance governed by gut symbiosis in a rice pest, Cletus punctiger, under laboratory conditions

Resistance to toxins in insects is generally thought of as their own genetic trait, but recent studies have revealed that gut microorganisms could mediate resistance by detoxifying phytotoxins and man-made insecticides. By laboratory experiments, we here discovered a striking example of gut symbiont-mediated insecticide resistance in a serious rice pest, Cletus punctiger. The rice bug horizontally acquired fenitrothion-degrading Burkholderia through oral infection and housed it in midgut crypts. Fenitrothion-degradation test revealed that the gut-colonizing Burkholderia retains a high degrading activity of the organophosphate compound in the insect gut. This gut symbiosis remarkably increased resistance against fenitrothion treatment in the host rice bug. Considering that many stinkbug pests are associated with soil-derived Burkholderia, our finding strongly supports that a number of stinkbug species could gain resistance against insecticide simply by acquiring insecticide-degrading gut bacteria.

Automated summary

Recent studies have shown that gut microorganisms can mediate insect resistance by detoxifying plant toxins and man-made insecticides, such as Burkholderia mediating insecticide resistance in beetles. This symbiosis significantly increases the host's resistance to insecticides.