Thrips are considered one of the most economically damaging pests of a wide range of food, feed, and fiber crops. Besides the direct damage caused by feeding, thrips transmit several crop-infecting tospoviruses. Annual losses due to tospoviruses are estimated to cost growers over US$1 billion worldwide. Thrips developed resistance to most of the pesticides and as such, alternative and eco-friendly approaches for thrips-tospovirus management are needed to ensure the sustainability of crop production. CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing of thrips genes that are crucial for its development and tospovirus transmission offers a promising management tool to reduce the impact of thrips-tospovirus pest complex. The initial infection of tospovirus was detected in anterior midgut of early instar thrips. The infection is retained in the visceral circular and longitudinal muscles in adults. Ubiquitin E3 ligases play a critical role in virus trafficking in thrips. Silencing of ubiquitin E3 ligase expressing gene reduced the tospovirus acquisition in thrips. E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase, white protein, and yellow protein were targeted to knockout using CRISPR-Cas9. The ribonucleoprotein complex (RNP) efficiently cleaved the linear products of E3 ubiquitin ligase, white protein, and yellow protein of thrips in vitro. Evaluation of these knockout constructs is being carried out by microinjecting thrips embryos.
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.jpeg.jpg "Amalendu Ghosh (he/him/his) photo")