Gamma radiation effects on the gonads of Tribolium castaneum were assessed by cytological techniques. Pupal treatments of 15 Gy resulted in the significant reduction of testes and ovaries leading to sterility in males and infecundity in females, respectively. The present findings thus provide an important information for designing a sterile male technique for this storage pest species.

A recent study reveals specific functions of Hox3/zerknüllt (zen) in the extraembryonic and embryonic primordia of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum. The results shed light on the functional evolution of bicoid, a zen paralogue of higher flies, which determines anterior body parts.

The Torso pathway patterns the ends of the Drosophila embryo. Now, it has been found to control axis elongation in the short germ insect Tribolium. This result raises the issue of the ancestral function of the Torso pathway and its evolution.

certain compounds of plants such as essential oils, with insecticidal properties have been considered as alternatives to chemical pesticides for pest control. this study reports the fumigant toxicity of citrus reticulata blanco (rutaceae) peel essential oils against stored-product insect pest, red flour beetle, tribolium castaneum herbst (tenebrionidae) adults. experiment was carried out at 27 ...

More than 20 years ago, an oxytocin/vasopressin-like peptide, CLITNCPRGamide, was isolated from the locust, Locusta migratoria [Proux JP, et al. (1987) Identification of an arginine vasopressin-like diuretic hormone from Locusta migratoria. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 149:180-186]. However, no similar peptide could be identified in other insects, nor could its prohormone be cloned, or its physio...

Balasubramanian, A., Jayas, D.S., Fernando, W.G.D., Li, G. and White, N.D.G. 2007. Sensitivity analysis of DNA fingerprinting technique for detecting insect fragments in wheat flour. Canadian Biosystems Engineering/Le génie des biosystèmes au Canada 49: 4.14.5. Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) and T. confusum (Jaquelin du Val) are the most commonly occurring insect species in flour mills and in dam...

Chemoperception in invertebrates is mediated by a family of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). To date nothing is known about the molecular mechanisms of chemoperception in coleopteran species. Recently the genome of Tribolium castaneum was sequenced for use as a model species for the Coleoptera. Using blast searches analyses of the T. castaneum genome with previously predicted amino acid sequ...

In a morphological ontology the expert's knowledge is represented in terms, which describe morphological structures and how these structures relate to each other. With the assistance of ontologies this expert knowledge is made processable by machines, through a formal and standardized representation of terms and their relations to each other. The red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, a represen...

Short germ embryos elongate their primary body axis by consecutively adding segments from a posteriorly located growth zone. Wnt signalling is required for axis elongation in short germ arthropods, including Tribolium castaneum, but the precise functions of the different Wnt receptors involved in this process are unclear. We analysed the individual and combinatorial functions of the three Wnt r...

BACKGROUND In the long-germ insect Drosophila, a single extraembryonic membrane, the amnioserosa, covers the embryo at the dorsal side. In ancestral short-germ insects, an inner membrane, the amnion, covers the embryo ventrally, and an outer membrane, the serosa, completely surrounds the embryo. An early differentiation step partitions the uniform blastoderm into the anterior-dorsal serosa and ...