Retroactive Maintains Cuticle Integrity by Promoting the Trafficking of Knickkopf into the Procuticle of Tribolium castaneum
Figure 2
TcRtv is important for the sustenance of procuticular chitin.
(A) Chitin staining (red) of cryosections of pharate adult insects containing both the old pupal cuticle (PC) and the newly synthesized elytral cuticle (EC). Nuclei were stained with DAPI (blue). Scale bar, 5 µm. (B) Quantitative analysis of chitin content from whole animals at pharate pupal and pharate adult stages was carried out using a modified Morgan-Elson assay (n = 5). TcVer and TcChs-A dsRNA-treated insects were used as controls. TcRtv RNAi resulted in a significant loss of chitin in comparison with the TcChs-A knockout. Data are reported as mean ± SE (n = 5 each). Statistical significance was computed with Student's t test. Means identified by different letters (a, b and c) are significantly different at P<0.05.