Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
Departamento de Microbiología Molecular, Instituto de Biotecnología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México.
PLoS One. 2023 Sep 14;18(9):e0291546. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291546. eCollection 2023.
The white potato worm Premnotrypes vorax (Hustache) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) is one of the most destructive insect pests of potato crops in South America. Like many coleopteran insects, P. vorax shows low susceptibility to Cry insecticidal proteins produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). However, the presence of Cry toxin receptors in the midgut of this this insect has never been studied. The main Cry-binding proteins described in other insect species are cadherin (CAD), aminopeptidase N (APN), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. In this study, we analyzed and validated a de novo assembled transcriptome of Illumina sequencing data to identify and to characterize homologs of Cry toxin receptors. We identified the protein sequences in P. vorax that show high identity with their orthologous sequences of the Cry toxin binding proteins in other coleopteran larvae such as APN, ALP, CAD and ABC transporter. This study provides preliminary identification of putative receptor genes of Cry proteins that would be useful for future studies involving biocontrol of this important potato crop pest.
白薯麦蛾 Premnotrypes vorax (Hustache) (鞘翅目：象甲科) 是南美洲马铃薯作物上最具破坏性的昆虫害虫之一。与许多鞘翅目昆虫一样，P. vorax 对苏云金芽孢杆菌 (Bt) 产生的 Cry 杀虫蛋白表现出低敏感性。然而，这种昆虫中中肠 Cry 毒素受体的存在从未被研究过。在其他昆虫物种中描述的主要 Cry 结合蛋白是钙粘蛋白 (CAD)、氨肽酶 N (APN)、碱性磷酸酶 (ALP) 和 ATP 结合盒 (ABC) 转运蛋白。在这项研究中，我们分析并验证了 Illumina 测序数据从头组装的转录组，以鉴定和表征 Cry 毒素受体的同源物。我们鉴定了 P. vorax 中的蛋白质序列，这些序列与其他鞘翅目幼虫（如 APN、ALP、CAD 和 ABC 转运蛋白）的 Cry 毒素结合蛋白的同源序列具有高度同一性。这项研究初步鉴定了 Cry 蛋白的潜在受体基因，这对于未来涉及这种重要马铃薯作物害虫的生物防治的研究将是有用的。
