Inheritance of pyrethroid resistance and a sodium channel gene mutation in the cattle tick Boophilus microplus

A substitution (Phe-->Ile) within the sodium channel gene sequence has been associated with pyrethroid resistance in Boophilus microplus. The aim of the present study was to analyze the inheritance of pyrethroid resistance and the mutant allele, on reciprocal crosses of a susceptible (SS) and a resistant (RR) strain. Bioassays and genotypes were determined to evaluate pyrethroid resistance. The resistance allele frequency of both parental strains were 100% and 2.27% for RR and SS, respectively. The reciprocal crosses show a predominance of the heterozygote genotype, in agreement with the significant decrease of the acaricide resistance to cypermethrin, deltamethrin, and flumethrin. However, the RS progeny showed a complete recessive survival (D (ML) = 0) for deltamethrin and flumethrin, suggesting a complete dominance of the susceptible allele and incomplete dominance for cypermethrin (D (ML) = 0.169). On the other hand, SR progeny showed a partially recessive survival for cypermethrin (D (ML) = 0.380), deltamethrin (D (ML) = 0.319), and flumethrin (D (ML) = 0.258), indicative of a partially dominant inheritance of the resistance. A possible maternal strain effect should be considered for practical purposes and prediction of acaricide resistance and further work needs to be done to elucidate the underlying inheritance of pyrethroid resistance and the sodium channel mutation in B. microplus.