The tomato leafminer (Tuta absoluta) is a highly destructive global quarantine pest. The methoprene-tolerant (Met) protein, a member of the bHLH/PAS family of transcription factors, forms complexes with other family members to transduce the juvenile hormone signal, which regulates insect growth and development. However, the functions of the TaMet gene have rarely been studied in T. absoluta. Herein, we investigated the significance of TaMet in T. absoluta. Spatiotemporal expression analysis revealed that TaMet exhibited comparable expression patterns in males and females, with high expression levels during the early pupal and early adult stages. TaMet was predominantly expressed in the female ovary and male wing. TaMet knockdown impaired ovarian development in female adults, causing irregular arrangement and increased spacing of the egg epithelial cells in the ovary. Silencing TaMet also led to a 67.25% reduction in female spawning and a 67.21% decrease in the offspring hatching rate. Furthermore, the vitellogenin content was significantly diminished, and the expression levels of vitellogenin (Vg) and vitellogenin receptor (VgR) genes were significantly downregulated. In contrast, silencing TaMet in 3-day-old male pupae resulted in an 80% mortality rate and various phenotypic abnormalities, including body melanism, molting defects, and wing deformities. Moreover, the expression levels of wing development and chitin metabolism genes decreased significantly after knocking down TaMet. Our results indicate that TaMet plays a significant dual role in male molting and female reproduction of T. absoluta.

P-fluoronitrobenzene (p-FNB) belongs to the aromatic fluorine containing intermediate, which is the main raw material for the production of biology, medicine, pesticides, and dyes.Over the years, the synthesis methods and technological development of p-fluoronitrobenzene have garnered widespread attention from the industrial and academic sectors, thanks to its high biological activity, low toxicity, outstanding performance, high added value, and low energy consumption. In this study, the halogen exchange fluorination method was employed to synthesize p-fluoronitrobenzene using p-chloronitrobenzene as the starting material. Through the action of phase transfer catalyst, the effects of process parameters such as reaction temperature, reaction time, type and amount of fluorinating agent, type and amount of catalyst, and solvent type were investigated and optimized. The main factors influencing the conversion rate of p-chloronitrobenzene and the yield of p-fluoronitrobenzene product were examined.Experimental results show that using highly active potassium fluoride as the fluorinating agent, with an equivalent ratio of 1.75 to p-chloronitrobenzene, and using tetramethylammonium chloride as the phase transfer catalyst, with a dosage of 4.5% relative to p-chloronitrobenzene, and using DMF as the solvent, the conversion rate and yield of the fluorination reaction can reach 97.86% and 91.58%, respectively, after a 15-hour reaction at 150°C. Under these process conditions, the fluorination reaction exhibits excellent performance and shows good reproducibility in scale-up experiments.