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Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control
Locusts and grasshoppers (acridids) are among the worst pests of crops and grasslands worldwide. Metarhizium acridum, a fungal pathogen that specifically infects acridids, has been developed as a control agent but its utility is limited by slow kill time and greater expense than chemical insecticide...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4256560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25475694 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07345 |
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author | Fang, Weiguo Lu, Hsiao-Ling King, Glenn F. St. Leger, Raymond J. |
author_facet | Fang, Weiguo Lu, Hsiao-Ling King, Glenn F. St. Leger, Raymond J. |
author_sort | Fang, Weiguo |
collection | PubMed |
description | Locusts and grasshoppers (acridids) are among the worst pests of crops and grasslands worldwide. Metarhizium acridum, a fungal pathogen that specifically infects acridids, has been developed as a control agent but its utility is limited by slow kill time and greater expense than chemical insecticides. We found that expression of four insect specific neurotoxins improved the efficacy of M. acridum against acridids by reducing lethal dose, time to kill and food consumption. Coinoculating recombinant strains expressing AaIT1(a sodium channel blocker) and hybrid-toxin (a blocker of both potassium and calcium channels), produced synergistic effects, including an 11.5-fold reduction in LC(50), 43% reduction in LT(50) and a 78% reduction in food consumption. However, specificity was retained as the recombinant strains did not cause disease in non-acridids. Our results identify a repertoire of toxins with different modes of action that improve the utility of fungi as specific control agents of insects. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4256560 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42565602014-12-08 Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control Fang, Weiguo Lu, Hsiao-Ling King, Glenn F. St. Leger, Raymond J. Sci Rep Article Locusts and grasshoppers (acridids) are among the worst pests of crops and grasslands worldwide. Metarhizium acridum, a fungal pathogen that specifically infects acridids, has been developed as a control agent but its utility is limited by slow kill time and greater expense than chemical insecticides. We found that expression of four insect specific neurotoxins improved the efficacy of M. acridum against acridids by reducing lethal dose, time to kill and food consumption. Coinoculating recombinant strains expressing AaIT1(a sodium channel blocker) and hybrid-toxin (a blocker of both potassium and calcium channels), produced synergistic effects, including an 11.5-fold reduction in LC(50), 43% reduction in LT(50) and a 78% reduction in food consumption. However, specificity was retained as the recombinant strains did not cause disease in non-acridids. Our results identify a repertoire of toxins with different modes of action that improve the utility of fungi as specific control agents of insects. Nature Publishing Group 2014-12-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4256560/ /pubmed/25475694 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07345 Text en Copyright © 2014, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Fang, Weiguo Lu, Hsiao-Ling King, Glenn F. St. Leger, Raymond J. Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control |
title | Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control |
title_full | Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control |
title_fullStr | Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control |
title_full_unstemmed | Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control |
title_short | Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control |
title_sort | construction of a hypervirulent and specific mycoinsecticide for locust control |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4256560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25475694 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07345 |
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