New measures of insecticidal efficacy and safety obtained with the 39K promoter of a recombinant baculovirus

Avital Regev, Hadassah Rivkin, Michael Gurevitz, Nor Chejanovsky*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

Baculoviruses are orally infectious to insects and considered to be natural insecticides. To enhance their speed-of-kill these viruses were engineered to express arthropod neurotoxins under the control of various strong promoters. Although this strategy proved to be efficient, it raised recently concerns about safety. We analyzed the speed-of-kill and safety of Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus expressing the insecticidal scorpion neurotoxin AaIT and found that the mortality of Helicoverpa armigera larvae was enhanced significantly when the expression was controlled by the baculovirus delayed-early promoter 39K rather than the very late promoter p10. This improvement was also reflected in better protection of cotton leaves on which these insects were fed. Using lacZ as a sensitive reporter we also found that expression driven by the 39K promoter was detected in insect but not in mammalian cells. These results imply that by selection of an appropriate viral promoter, engineered baculoviruses may comply with the high standard biosafety requirements from a genetically modified organism (GMO). Our results provide further support for the potential use of engineered baculoviruses in insect pest control in a safely manner.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6777-6782
Number of pages6
JournalFEBS Letters
Volume580
Issue number30
DOIs
StatePublished - 22 Dec 2006

Funding

FundersFunder number
Israeli Science Foundation733/01
United States - Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund

    Keywords

    • 39K promoter
    • Baculovirus
    • GMO
    • Helicoverpa armigera
    • Neurotoxin
    • Safety

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