Entomotoxic Proteins from Plant Biodiversity to Control the Crop Insect Pests

Abstract

Plants are in continuous attack from different insect orders and cause significant economic losses globally in the field of agriculture. To accomplish the food requirements for the growing population, there is an utmost need to protect plant biodiversity from old and emerging insect-pests. The most legible control strategy of insect-pests requires different methods, which may include mechanical, chemical, biological, cultural practices and the development of transgenic plants. An alternative strategy may also include plant's own defense systems. In this way, we could manipulate the expression of plant defense proteins or engineer plant using gene derived from different species of the plant. In this chapter, we have discussed about the some of the important plant defense arsenals known to cause inhibitory effect against the insect-pests. Some of these includes, lectins, proteinase inhibitors, ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs), arcelins, α-amylase inhibitors, Plant peptides that includes: Defensins, cyclotides, canatoxins like proteins, ureases and urease-derived encrypted peptides, chitinases, and proteases.