Red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum): From population genetics to functional genomics

Tribolium castaneum is a small and low maintenance beetle that has emerged as a most suitable insect model for studying developmental biology and functional genetic analysis. Diverse population genetic studies have been conducted using Tribolium as the principal model to establish basic facts and principles of inbreeding experiments and response to the selection and other quantitative genetics fundamentals. The advanced molecular genetic studies presently focused on the use of Tribolium as a typical invertebrate model for higher diploid eukaryotes. After a whole genome sequencing of Tribolium, many areas of functional genomics were unraveled, which enabled the use of it in many technical approaches of genomics. The present text reviews the use of Tribolium in techniques such as RNAi, transgenic studies, immune priming, immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, gene sequencing for characterization of microRNAs, and gene editing using engineered endonuclease. In contrast to Drosophila, the T. castaneum holds a robust systemic RNAi response, which makes it an excellent model for comparative functional genetic studies.