ISB News Report
April 2014

An Innovative Approach for Pest Control towards Next Generation Insect Resistant Plants
Punam Kumari, Nirupama Banerjee and Neera Bhalla Sarin

Insecticidal Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxins have been successfully expressed in plants to provide resistance against selected insect pests. Each Bt gene is highly specific: single Cry proteins are generally toxic to specific orders of insects, mostly Lepidoptera (Cry1 toxins) and Coleoptera (Cry3 toxins). Non-Bt approaches for resistance to pests have also been used by exploiting plant defense mechanisms such as proteinase inhibitors, lectins, a-amylase inhibitors, enzymes, and predator toxins. Our results indicate that the gene encoding XnGroEL is a promising candidate for more comprehensive evaluation for crop protection in agriculture and could provide new and alternative options for pest management in a variety of crops.

Full article
 

Website: http://www.isb.vt.edu

Published: April 16, 2014