First report on heat shock protein expression in red spider mites (Oligonychus coffeae) in response to pesticide exposure

Abstract

Red spider mites (RSM) is one of the major pest of tea and reported from all tea producing regions around the world. Chemical acaricides are the primary control method against this pest which induced biochemical changes in the RSM. In this study early expression of heat shock proteins have been observed in RSM exposed to commonly used acaricides viz., ethion, dicofol and fenpropathrin. In case of pesticide exposed RSM, hsp90 showed more prominent bands than the hsp70 in immunoblotted membrane, indicating that the intensity of expression of hsp90 in RSM against pesticides is higher than hsp70. Hsp70 expression is higher in ethion and fenpropathrin induced RSM than that of dicofol. Ethion and fenpropathrin treated RSM were not showing any difference when compared based on exposure time, whereas dicofol treated once showed more expression in short time. The expression of hsp90 is significantly higher in the dicofol treated samples followed by fenpropathrin, however ethion treated sample showed marginally higher hsp90 expression than control.