摘要ABC transporters have been suggested to be involved in insecticide detoxifica-tion in different insect species mainly based on the indirect observation of transcriptional upregulation of ABC gene expression in response to insecticide exposure.Previous studies performed by us and others in the red flour beetle,Tribolium castaneum,have analyzed the function of TcABCA-C and TcABCG-H genes using RNA interference(RNAi)and demonstrated that specific TcABCA and TcABCC genes are involved in the elimination of the pyrethroid tefluthrin and the benzoylurea diflubenzuron,because gene silencing increased the beetle's susceptibility to the insecticides.In this study,we focused on the po-tential functions of TcABCA-C genes in detoxification of the pyrethroid cyfluthrin(CF),the organophosphate malathion(MAL)and the diacylhdyazine tebufenozide(TBF).Anal-ysis of transcript levels of selected TcABCA-C genes in response to treatment with these three chemically unrelated insecticides revealed that some genes were particularly upreg-ulated after insecticide treatment.In addition,the ABC inhibitor verapamil synergized significantly the toxicity of MAL but only negligibly CF and TBF toxicities.Finally,si-lencing of two TcABCC genes by RNAi revealed a significant increase in susceptibility to MAL.In contrast,we did not observe a significant increase in insecticide-induced mor-talities when knocking down TcABC genes in larvae treated with CF or TBF,although they were upregulated in response to insecticide treatment.Our results suggest that two pleiotropic ABCC transporters expressed in metabolic and excretory tissues contribute to the elimination of MAL.