Fig. 1

Identification of novel RNAi target genes in Tribolium castaneum. The survival after knock-down of the 11 most efficient RNAi target genes identified in our screen is shown. dsRNAs of different concentrations were injected into 10 Tribolium larvae, respectively, and the survival rate was recorded every second day. a The pigmentation gene Tc-ebony was used as negative control. b–m Most of our novel RNAi target genes showed a larval mortality of 100 % on day eight and 80 % on day six post treatment for every dsRNA concentration. n–p RNAi treatment of commonly used targets based on the seminal paper of Baum et al. [15] revealed a lower efficiency (see also Additional file 2: Fig. S1B)