Effect of hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 on the fecundity of Nilaparvata lugens: Insights from RNA interference combined with transcriptomic analysis

Hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 (HNF4) plays essential roles in regulating lipid metabolism and glucose homeostasis in female insects. However, little is known about the role of HNF4 in insect fecundity. Here we demonstrate that HNF4 regulates female fecundity by affecting egg hatching in the brown planthopper (BPH) Nilaparvata lugens. HNF4 was highly expressed in the ovary and fat body of female adult. RNA interference-mediated HNF4 knockdown resulted in a dramatic reduction in egg hatchability and caused a severe block in embryonic development, while showed no significant effects on ovary development and egg laying. Transcriptome sequencing analysis showed that 72 genes encoding ribosome proteins were significantly down-regulated in the HNF4-silenced BPH and ribosome was the most-enriched pathway for the down-regulated genes. These results suggest that HNF4 controls the dynamics of egg structure, likely through its regulation of ribosome protein genes, which in turn affects the embryonic development and egg hatching.