The transcript of translationally controlled tumor protein plays an important role in eukaryotes involved in growth and development.However, only a few study was related to insects and its biological functions of insects were rare.In the present study, a full-length complementary DNA (cDNA, GeneBank accession no.:JF999999) encoding the TCTP protein of Trichoplusia ni BTI-Tn-5B 1-4 cell line was obtained by rapid amplification of cDNA ends combined with polymerase chain reaction (PCR).The obtained cDNA was 833 bp with an open reading frame of 519 bp encoding 172 amino acids.T.ni TCTP (TnTCTP) was heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) cells with a fusion green fluorescent protein (GFP).Results indicated that the optimized cultural condition for the expression of recombinant TnTCTP-GFP was induced with 0.2 mmol/L IPTG at 37 ℃ for 6 h.Quantitative real-time PCR analysis showed that TnTCTP messenger RNA was highly expressed in the second-instar larvae, but minimally expressed in the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-instar larvae.This result suggested that TnTCTP might not be an invariant gene in T.ni and might have an important role in T.ni development.These would provide support to study the interaction between TnTCTP and pesticides.