Abstract
Insect-killing (entomopathogenic) fungi have high potential for controlling agriculturally harmful pests. However, their pathogenicity is slow, and this is one reason for their poor acceptance as a fungal insecticide. The expression of bumblebee, Bombus ignitus, venom serine protease (VSP) by Beauveria bassiana (ERL1170) induced melanization of yellow spotted longicorn beetles (Psacothea hilaris) as an over-reactive immune response, and caused substantially earlier mortality in beet armyworm (Spodopetra exigua) larvae when compared to the wild type. No fungal outgrowth or sporulation was observed on the melanized insects, thus suggesting a self-restriction of the dispersal of the genetically modified fungus in the environment. The research is the first use of a multi-functional bumblebee VSP to significantly increase the speed of fungal pathogenicity, while minimizing the dispersal of the fungal transformant in the environment.
Highlights
Insect killing fungi have high potential in controlling agriculturally harmful pests [1]
Some efforts have been given to the expression of pathogenesis-related genes, such as B. bassiana chitinase gene [5] and Bacillus thuringiensis vegetative insecticidal protein (VIP) gene [6] in B. bassiana and insect-specific scorpion neurotoxin (AaIT) gene [7] in M. anisopliae to increase fungal virulence
Integration of vsp Gene into a Transformation Vector For integration of the vsp gene into B. bassiana ERL1170 and the extracellular secretion of venom serine protease (VSP) protein, the active domain of the vsp gene was tailed with B. bassiana signal (Bbs) sequence for chitinase (Figure 1a) and inserted into a fungal transformation vector, yielding the binary plasmid pAB-Bbs-VSP (9.9 kb) (Figure 1b)
Summary
Insect killing (entomopathogenic) fungi have high potential in controlling agriculturally harmful pests [1]. Some efforts have been given to the expression of pathogenesis-related genes, such as B. bassiana chitinase gene [5] and Bacillus thuringiensis vegetative insecticidal protein (VIP) gene [6] in B. bassiana and insect-specific scorpion neurotoxin (AaIT) gene [7] in M. anisopliae to increase fungal virulence. These proteins were previously reported expressed in baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) with the assessment of insecticidal potentials. Much more virulent entomopathogenic fungi need to be developed for efficacious pest management
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