Abstract
We discovered that the external application of a solution containing one single-stranded DNA fragment, 18 nucleotides long, either from the BIR domain of the AcMNPV IAP-2 gene or the RING domain of the TnSNPV IAP-2 gene, induces a significantly higher mortality of gypsy moth larvae compared to a solution of distilled water. The results show the insecticidal potential of viral DNA fragments that can be used to create safe, relatively inexpensive and fast-acting insecticides to control quantity of pest insect populations. In our opinion, insecticidal effect may depend on the specific sequence of double and triple hydrogen bonds in a single-stranded DNA fragment or on a sequence of a few nitrogenous bases at specific sites of an oligonucleotide. The results suggest that small single-stranded viral DNA fragments may have practical applications as DNA insecticides.
Highlights
One of the main reasons why viral preparations have not found wide practical application is because their production is based on the cultivation of large numbers of host insects
We examine the possibility of applying DNA insecticides, based on fragments of IAP-2 gene of different viruses, against gypsy moth larvae
Two DNA fragments from relatively conserved baculovirus inhibitor of apoptosis repeat (BIR) and highly conserved really interesting new gen (RING) domains of anti-apoptotic gene IAP-2 of nuclear polyhedrosis viruses of gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar (Lepidoptera: Erebidae)) – LdMNPV, cabbage looper (Trichoplusia ni (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)) – TnSNPV and alfalfa looper (Autographa californica (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)) – AcMNPV were chosen for our experiments
Summary
One of the main reasons why viral preparations have not found wide practical application is because their production is based on the cultivation of large numbers of host insects. This technology is time and labour intensive, which makes it expensive to produce the amount of virus required to control insect pest populations. A large field of research is devoted to improving baculoviruses by increasing their infection rate through genetic modifications [6] An alternative to this trend may be a technology based on the application of single-stranded viral DNA fragments possessing insecticidal activity [13, 14, 15, 18]. DNA insecticides may be made based on the many genes that play important roles in a host cell’s life, e.g. anti-apoptosis genes
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