Anti-insect
potential of lectins from Arisaema
species towards Bactrocera
cucurbitae
Manpreet
Kaur1, Kuljinder
Singh2, Pushpinder
J. Rup2, Sukhdev Singh Kamboj1 and Jatinder Singh*1
1
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, 2 Department of
Zoology, Guru Nanak
Dev University,
Amritsar, 143 005, India
(Received: April 29, 2008; Revised received: February 23, 2009;
Accepted: March
02, 2009)
Abstract:?
Bactrocera cucurbitae
(Coquillett), also known as melon fruit fly, is one
of the major insect pests of cucurbits in several parts of Asia, Africa and Pacific. In the present investigation, effect
of lectins from two sources i.e. Arisaema
intermedium Blume and Arisaema wallichianum Hook f.
(Family-Araceae) has been studied on the development
of second instar larvae of melon fruit fly. The lectins were incorporated separately in artificial diet at
a concentration of 10 to 160 ?g ml-1 and fed adlibitum
to the second instar larvae. Both the lectins were found to prolong the development period and
significantly inhibited the pupation and emergence in a dose dependent manner.
Total development period was found to be prolonged by 3.5 and 2.3 days in case
of larvae fed on artificial diet containing A. intermedium
(AIL) and A. wallichianum (AWL), respectively. LC50
values calculated on the basis of adult emergence came out to be 32.8 and 29 ?g
ml-1 for AIL and AWL, respectively. Both the lectins
tested, were found to increase the activity of esterases
as larvae proceeded from 24 to 72 hr of treatment. The activity of acid phosphatase decreased significantly in larvae reared on
diet containing LC50 of AIL, while in case of AWL significant
decrease was observed only at 72 hr of treatment. Alkaline phosphatase
activity decreased significantly on treatment with both of these lectins. These results showed that AIL and AWL have promising anti-insect potential. So, lectin gene/s from either of these species can be cloned
and subsequently can be employed to develop transgenics
to control melon fruit flies specifically and insect pests in general. This
approach could be used as a part of Integrated pest
management (IPM) strategies.
Key
words: Araceae, Arisaema, Bactrocera, Diptera, Esterases, Fruit fly, Lectin, Phosphatases
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