Mosquito immunity studies have focused mainly on characterizing immune effector mechanisms elicited against parasites, bacteria and more recently, viruses. However, those elicited against entomopathogenic fungi remain poorly understood, despite the ubiquitous nature of these microorganisms and their unique invasion route that bypasses the midgut epithelium, an important immune tissue and physic...

Beauveria is a globally distributed genus of soil-borne entomopathogenic hyphomycetes of interest as a model system for the study of entomopathogenesis and the biological control of pest insects. Species recognition in Beauveria is difficult due to a lack of taxonomically informative morphology. This has impeded assessment of species diversity in this genus and investigation of their natural hi...

The entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo 1835) Vuillemin is an effective alternative control agent against some agricultural pests and biological vectors of important diseases such as Chagas disease. In this work we studied an isolate of Beauveria bassiana from of the town of San Antonio Rayón, Puebla, Mexico and its entomopathogenic effects on Meccus pallidipennis (Stal 1872). P...

The housefly Musca domestica is a worldwide insect pest that acts as a vector for many pathogenic diseases in both people and animals. The present study was conducted to evaluate the virulence of different local isolates of Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae and Isaria fumosorosea on M. domestica using two bioassay techniques: (1) adult immersion and (2) a bait method applied to both la...

Transcriptional control of the cell cycle by forkhead (Fkh) transcription factors is likely associated with fungal adaptation to host and environment. Here we show that Fkh2, an ortholog of yeast Fkh1/2, orchestrates cell cycle and many cellular events of Beauveria bassiana, a filamentous fungal insect pathogen. Deletion of Fkh2 in B. bassiana resulted in dramatic down-regulation of the cyclin-...

The entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana produces at least three distinct single-cell propagules, aerial conidia, vegetative cells termed blastospores, and submerged conidia, which can be isolated from agar plates, from rich broth liquid cultures, and under nutrient limitation conditions in submerged cultures, respectively. Fluorescently labeled fungal cells were used to quantify the kine...

Orius sauteri (Poppius; Hemiptera: Anthocoridae) is an important predator of western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande; Thysanoptera: Thripidae). O. sauteri would be directly exposed to the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana (Bals.) Vuillemin in the field should the fungus be used as a biopesticide. If the fungus were to negatively affect O. sauteri in agro-ecosystems,...

To identify the susceptibility of long-horned grasshoppers to entomopathogenic fungi, the effect of infection with the fungi Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) and Metarhizium anisopliae (Metchnikoff) Sorokin (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) on food consumption by Uvarovistia zebra (Uvarov) (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) was investigated. Preliminary results showed...

The phylogenetic lineage, taxonomic affiliation and interrelationships of important asexual entomopathogenic fungal genera were studied using the sequences of partial regions of beta-tubulin and rRNA genes. The species structures of Beauveria bassiana and Nomuraea rileyi were also investigated. A total of 147 fungal entries covering 94 species were analysed. Phylogenetic analysis placed all the...

The objective of this study was to select strains of Beauveria bassiana for controlling Cosmopolites sordidus (Germ.) in plantain farms (cv. Terra) of the "Recôncavo" and southern regions in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The virulence of 32 B. bassiana isolates against C. sordidus was determined under laboratory conditions. Three isolates (CNPMF 407, CNPMF 218, and CNPMF 416) were selected for ev...