The Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus is one of the most invasive species and an efficient vector of several pathogens. RNA interference (RNAi) has been proposed as an alternative method to control mosquito populations by silencing the expression of genes that are essential for their survival. However, the optimal delivery method for dsRNAs to enhance an optimal RNAi remains elusive and comparative studies are lacking. We have, therefore, compared the efficiency of three non-invasive delivery methods to mosquito larvae: soaking, rehydration and nanoparticle ingestion. Each method was tested separately on four genes predicted to code non-essential proteins (i.e., collagenase-like, kynurenine 3-monooxygenase-like, yellow-like and venom serine protease-like) in order to be able to compare the importance of gene knock-down. All tested methods successfully downregulated mosquito gene expression. However, silencing efficiency strongly varies among methods and genes. Silencing (95.1%) was higher for Kynurenine 3-monooxygenase-like with rehydration and nanoparticle ingestion (61.1%). For the Venom serine protease-like, the most efficient silencing was observed with soaking (74.5%) and rehydration (34%). In contrast, the selected methods are inefficient to silence the other genes. Our findings also indicate that gene copy numbers, transcript sizes and GC content correlate with the silencing efficiency. From our results, rehydration was the most specific and efficient methods to specifically knock-down gene expression in Ae. albopictus larvae. Nevertheless, considering the observed variability of efficiency is gene-dependent, our results also point at the necessity to test and optimize diverse dsRNA delivery approaches to achieve a maximal RNAi efficiency.

亚洲虎蚊白纹伊蚊是最具入侵性的物种之一，也是多种病原体的有效媒介。 RNA 干扰 (RNAi) 已被提议作为一种替代方法，通过沉默对蚊子生存至关重要的基因的表达来控制蚊子种群。然而，增强最佳 RNAi 的最佳 dsRNA 递送方法仍然难以捉摸，并且缺乏比较研究。因此，我们比较了三种非侵入性递送方法对蚊子幼虫的效率：浸泡、补液和纳米颗粒摄入。每种方法分别对预测编码非必需蛋白质的四个基因（即胶原酶样、犬尿氨酸3-单加氧酶样、黄色样和毒液丝氨酸蛋白酶样）进行测试，以便能够比较基因的重要性击倒。所有测试的方法都成功下调了蚊子基因表达。然而，不同方法和基因的沉默效率差异很大。对于犬尿氨酸 3-单加氧酶类，通过补液和纳米颗粒摄入（61.1%），沉默（95.1%）更高。对于毒液丝氨酸蛋白酶样，观察到浸泡（74.5%）和复水（34%）最有效的沉默。相反，所选择的方法无法有效地沉默其他基因。我们的研究结果还表明，基因拷贝数、转录本大小和 GC 含量与沉默效率相关。从我们的结果来看，补液是特异性敲除伊蚊基因表达的最特异、最有效的方法。白纹伊蚊幼虫。然而，考虑到观察到的效率变异性是基因依赖性的，我们的结果还指出有必要测试和优化不同的 dsRNA 递送方法以实现最大的 RNAi 效率。