{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,7]],"date-time":"2026-05-07T20:23:50Z","timestamp":1778185430627,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,14]],"date-time":"2024-11-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1731542400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Physiol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>The tomato leafminer (<jats:italic>Tuta absoluta<\/jats:italic>) is a highly destructive global quarantine pest. The methoprene-tolerant (Met) protein, a member of the bHLH\/PAS family of transcription factors, forms complexes with other family members to transduce the juvenile hormone signal, which regulates insect growth and development. However, the functions of the <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> gene have rarely been studied in <jats:italic>T. absoluta<\/jats:italic>. Herein, we investigated the significance of <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> in <jats:italic>T. absoluta<\/jats:italic>. Spatiotemporal expression analysis revealed that <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> exhibited comparable expression patterns in males and females, with high expression levels during the early pupal and early adult stages. <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> was predominantly expressed in the female ovary and male wing. <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> knockdown impaired ovarian development in female adults, causing irregular arrangement and increased spacing of the egg epithelial cells in the ovary. Silencing <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> also led to a 67.25% reduction in female spawning and a 67.21% decrease in the offspring hatching rate. Furthermore, the vitellogenin content was significantly diminished, and the expression levels of vitellogenin (<jats:italic>Vg<\/jats:italic>) and vitellogenin receptor (<jats:italic>VgR<\/jats:italic>) genes were significantly downregulated. In contrast, silencing <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> in 3-day-old male pupae resulted in an 80% mortality rate and various phenotypic abnormalities, including body melanism, molting defects, and wing deformities. Moreover, the expression levels of wing development and chitin metabolism genes decreased significantly after knocking down <jats:italic>TaMet.<\/jats:italic> Our results indicate that <jats:italic>TaMet<\/jats:italic> plays a significant dual role in male molting and female reproduction of <jats:italic>T. absoluta<\/jats:italic>.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fphys.2024.1500391","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,14]],"date-time":"2024-11-14T06:22:25Z","timestamp":1731565345000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Dual roles of methoprene-tolerant gene TaMet in male molting and female reproduction of the tomato leafminer, Tuta absoluta (meyrick)"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Tingwei","family":"Zhang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kai","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Deqian","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hang","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wenbiao","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Wenjia","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,11,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e0008669","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0008669","article-title":"Molecular action of pyriproxyfen: role of the Methoprene-tolerant protein in the pyriproxyfen-induced sterilization of adult female mosquitoes","volume":"148","author":"Ahmed","year":"2022","journal-title":"PLoS Negl. 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