Toxicity of procymidone to Bombyx mori based on physiological and transcriptomic analysis

Procymidone is widely used in vegetables and fruits because of its broad-spectrum and high efficiency. However, it is unclear whether procymidone can affect silkworm (Bombyx mori) growth and cocoon production. This study investigated the effects of procymidone on the growth and cocoon production of silkworms. We analyzed the growth, and cocoon quality of fifth instar larvae fed on mulberry leaves saturated with different concentrations (2.5, 5, and 10 mg/ml) of procymidone and the control. Results showed that procymidone supplementation decreased the larval growth and cocoon quality compared to the control group, suggesting that procymidone had toxicity to silkworms. Additionally, after transcriptomic analysis, we identified 396 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the presence of procymidone. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) illustrated that these DEGs were closely related to metabolism. Taken together, these results confirmed that procymidone could cause toxicity by affecting metabolism in silkworm larvae. We believed that these results could provide important materials for the effect of procymidone on silkworms and gave us some clues for pesticides used in the mulberry garden.