Fig. 5

Biological effects on dsRhEcR- or dsRhUSP-treated ticks. Female ticks were treated with dsRhEcR or dsRhUSP. The knockdown of RhEcR affected the normal growth and development of ticks and the salivary gland degeneration. a Schematic workflow of the RNAi experiments. b DsRhEcR treatment inhibited blood-feeding and growth compared to the dsLuciferase-treated group. c RhEcR was significantly reduced compared to the dsLuciferase-treated group (t = 28.91, df = 4, P < 0.0001). d The dsRhEcR-treated group also showed reduced RhEcR protein levels in the salivary gland compared to the dsLuciferase-treated group. e DsRhUSP treatment had no significant effect on blood-feeding or growth compared to the dsLuciferase-treated group. f The DsRhUSP-treated group showed no morphological alterations compared to the dsLuciferase-treated group, although RhUSP was significantly reduced compared to the dsLuciferase-treated group (t = 5.885, df = 4, P = 0.0042). g HE staining of the salivary gland within the blood-feeding period in dsRhEcR-, dsRhUSP- and dsLuciferase-treated groups. The agranular acini morphology in dsRhEcR-treated ticks was abnormal, since it showed increased size of the acini. The most obvious effect was that agranular acini did not show the degenerated morphology. In c and f, the data represent the mean ± SD of the experiment (10 ticks/time point) performed in triplicate and normalized to EF1α, and two-tailed Student’s t-tests were used to identify significant differences between groups (****P < 0.0001, **P < 0.01)