The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch (Acari: Tetranychidae) has emerged as an important agricultural pest in a wide range of outdoor and protected crops worldwide. Fenazaquin is METI-acaricide which is used extensively and frequently for the management of this mite has resulted in the development of resistance. So, present studies were conducted to investigate molecular characterization and genetic analysis based on mtCOI sequence between fenazaquin resistant and susceptible population of T. urticae as very limited information is available regarding mutation/variability in genes involved in imparting resistance. Fenzaquin resistance population was developed in the laboratory by giving selection pressure with fenazaquin for 15 generations leading to 166.49 fold resistance when compared with susceptible population. Molecular characterization of resistant and susceptible population revealed no changes in genes structure of mtCOI in the resistant compared to the susceptible population. In our studies high level of resistance to fenazaquin didn’t show any change in the amino acid sequence of COI region of resistant and susceptible populations Thus results revealed mtCOI as a stable gene which is least influenced by acaricide resistance.

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