Abstract

Phytophagous insect larvae feed on plants containing secondary metabolic products with biological activity against other predatory organisms. Phytophagous insects can use their specialised metabolic systems to covert these secondary metabolic products into compounds with therapeutic properties useful to mankind. Some Asians drink tea decoctions made from phytophagous insect frass which is believed to be effective against inflammatory diseases. However, insects that can convert plant-derived secondary metabolic products into useful human therapeutic agents remain poorly studied. Here, we constructed the TUATinsecta database by integrating publicly plant/insect datasets for the purpose of selecting insect species. Using TUAT-insecta we selected the Asian swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus larvae fed on several species of Rutaceous plants and examined whether the plant-derived secondary metabolites, especially those present in frass, were chemically altered or not. We extracted metabolic products from frass using three organic solvents with different polarities, and evaluated solvent fractions for their cytotoxic effects against several human cell lines. We found that chloroform frass extracts from P. xuthus larvae fed on Poncirus trifoliata leaves contained significant cytotoxic activity. Our findings demonstrate that screening of insect species using the ‘TUATinsecta’ database provides an important pipeline for discovering novel therapeutic agents that might be useful for mankind.

Highlights

  • Phytophagous insect larvae feed on plants containing secondary metabolic products with biological activity against other predatory organisms

  • We constructed “TUATinsecta” by data integration to efficiently find the phytophagous insect species to screen for pharmaceutical resources and to experimentally determine whether the metabolic products from the host plants would be changed by insect metabolic system

  • Using several insect d­ atabases[19,20], we entered the information regarding insect species which fed on plants, thereafter adding the information from the KNApSAcK ­database[21] about their host-plant substances and their biological activity; we created connections among the various information fields in the TUATinsecta database

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Summary

Introduction

Phytophagous insect larvae feed on plants containing secondary metabolic products with biological activity against other predatory organisms. Insects that can convert plantderived secondary metabolic products into useful human therapeutic agents remain poorly studied. Using TUAT-insecta we selected the Asian swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus larvae fed on several species of Rutaceous plants and examined whether the plantderived secondary metabolites, especially those present in frass, were chemically altered or not. Need to identify other resources which include secondary metabolites ( referred to as metabolic products) for utilisation as pharmaceutical agents. Insect species which eat only plants are classified phytophagous insects Secondary metabolites, including those of plants, are known to act as factors that stimulate or inhibit feeding behaviour in i­nsects[6,7,8]. The types of plants that insects are able to eat are limited, and most insects have a specific host plant

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