“…In Z. cucurbitae, the injection or ingestion of gene-specific dsRNAs successfully suppressed the target gene expression in larvae and adults, leading to developmental defects and mortality. For instance, the knockdown of vitellogenin genes significantly reduced its fecundity and caused ovarian defects (Chen et al, 2022;Li et al, 2021;Lian et al, 2022), while the knockdown of imaginal disc growth factors (IDGF6) caused wing malformation, the knockdown of the tyrosineprotein kinase-like tok gene (Tpk-Tok) caused a black and distorted body and major larval mortality and the knockdown of Argonaute1 (Ago1) and Gawky affected ovarian development and pigmentation (Ahmad et al, 2021(Ahmad et al, , 2023aJamil et al, 2022). To further develop efficient RNAi-based pest control strategies for Z. cucurbitae achieving very high larval mortality (the most destructive stage), it is important to test new gene candidates, which could later be targeted in cosilencing approaches (Ahmad et al, 2023b).…”