Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis is a bacterium that produces crystalline, protein toxins whose activity has been exploited to develop environmentally safe biopesticides that are important in mosquito control. B. t. subsp. israelensis has six genes encoding toxic proteins on a 137 kDa plasmid, including: cry4A, cry4B, cry10A, cry11A (formerly cry4D), cyt1Aa, and cyt2Ba (Ben-Dov et al.,...

Bacillus thuringiensis is an important microbial insecticide for controlling agricultural pests. We report the finished genome sequence of Bacillus thuringiensis serovar israelensis strain HD-789, which contains genes encoding 7 parasporal crystals consisting of Cry4Aa3, Cry4Ba5 (2 genes), Cry10Aa3, Cry11Aa3, Cry60Ba3, and Cry60Aa3, plus 3 Cyt toxin genes and 1 hemagglutinin gene.

Cyt1Aa is a delta-endotoxin protein that is produced by Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis. It is a membrane pore-forming toxin that is lethal to insect larvae and is broadly cytolytic to vertebrate as well as invertebrate cells. Cyt1Aa is produced as a protoxin of 27 kDa. Proteolytic activation results in a reduction of the molecular mass to approximately 23-24 kDa and a threefold incre...

Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. israelensis (Bti) is the first Bacillus thuringiensis to be found and used as an effective biological control agent against larvae of many mosquito and black fly species around the world. Its larvicidal activity resides in four major (of 134, 128, 72 and 27 kDa) and at least two minor (of 78 and 29 kDa) polypeptides encoded respectively by cry4Aa, cry4Ba, cry11Aa, ...

Chemical insecticides provide many benefits to food production and human health and has proven very effective at increasing agriculture and forestry productivities. However, they also pose some hazards as contamination of water and food sources, poisoning of non-target fauna and flora, concentration in the food chain and selection of insect pest populations resistent to the chemical insecticide...