Photorhabdus luminescens is a gram-negative insect pathogen that enters the hemocoel of infected hosts and produces a number of secreted proteins that promote colonization and subsequent death of the insect. In initial studies to determine the exact role of individual secreted proteins in insect pathogenesis, concentrated culture supernatants from various P. luminescens strains were injected in...

BACKGROUND Insect repellents are prophylactic tools against a number of vector-borne diseases. There is growing demand for repellents outperforming DEET in cost and safety, but with the current technologies R&D of a new product takes almost 10 years, with a prohibitive cost of $30 million dollar in part due to the demand for large-scale synthesis of thousands of test compounds of which only 1 m...

Baculoviruses have gained popularity as pest control agents and for protein production in insect systems. These viruses are also becoming popular for gene expression, tissue engineering and gene therapy in mammalian systems. Baculovirus infection triggers a heat shock response, and this response is crucial for its successful infection of host insect cells. However, the viral protein(s) or facto...

A topical solution containing 65% permethrin (EXspot, Schering-Plough Animal Health Corp., Union, NJ) was evaluated for repellency and insecticidal activity against the phlebotomine sandfly, Phlebotomus perniciosus (Diptera: Psychodidae). Four dogs were sedated and individually exposed to 100 female P. perniciosus inside a cage. Two of the dogs were treated on Day 0 with the permethrin solution...

The potential of baculoviruses to be employed as insecticides is known since more than 75 years ago (Benz, 1986). To date, over 30 different baculoviruses are used to control several insect plagues in agriculture, horticulture and forestry (Moscardi, 1999). The use of baculovirus as insecticides is based on a set of useful properties, such as pathogenicity, specificity, narrow host range, envir...

In this discussion the principle is adopted that factors tending to increase food and/or income for economically marginal rural families, while decreasing pressure for land-clearing, pesticides and intensive agriculture, will tend to favor the preservation ofbiodiversity and a sustainable future. The great diversity ofhabitats of insect species that serve as traditional foods presents an almost...

background: baculovirus expression system is one of the most attractive and powerful eukaryotic expression systems for the production of recombinant proteins. the presence of a biomarker is required to monitor transfection efficiency or protein expression levels in insect cells. methods: the aim of this study was to construct a baculovirus expression vector encoding a copepod super green fluore...

chemical insecticides have been widely employed for the control of storage grain pests. this has caused such problems as insecticide resistance along with contamination of foodstuffs with chemical residues. thus, there is a growing interest in using pathogenic control agents as alternative. in this study, the potential of beauveria bassiana (bbweevil™, a commercial product containing 2×109 coni...