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Vegetative insecticidal protein enhancing the toxicity of Bacillus thuringiensis subsp kurstaki against Spodoptera
1State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
Aims:
The objective of this work was to enhance the insecticidal activity or widen the pesticidal spectrum of a commercial Bacillus thuringiensis strain YBT1520.
Methods And Results:
A vegetative insecticidal protein gene vip3Aa7, under the control of its native promoter and cry3A promoter, was subcloned into B. thuringiensis acrystalliferous BMB171 to generate BMB8901 and BMBvip respectively. It was found that the amount of Vip3Aa7 protein produced by BMBvip was 3.2-fold more than that produced by BMB8901. Therefore, the vip3Aa7 gene under the control of cry3A promoter was transformed into strain YBT1520. The toxicity of the resulting strain BMB218V against Spodoptera exigua was 10-fold more than that of YBT1520, and that the toxicity of BMB218V against Helicoverpa armigera retained the same level as that of strain YBT1520.
Conclusions:
Strain YBT1520 obtained high toxicity against S. exigua after it was transformed and expressed the foreign vip3Aa7 gene.
Significance And Impact Of The Study:
Commercial B. thuringiensis strain YBT1520 has high toxicity against H. armigera and Plutella xylostella, but almost no activity against S. exigua, which is a major crop pest in China. This work provides a new strategy for widening the activity spectrum of B. thuringiensis against agriculture pests.
