Up to the present, no nutritional studies of the genus Musca have been made, despite the fact that M. dome8tica is extensively used for the laboratory testing of insecticides, and that in recent years, with the development of resistance to insecticides, the importance of physiological studies of the housefly has increased. In general, the nutritional requirements of insects for lipids are mostl...

A series of truncated and Ala-replacement analogs of the peptide Manse-CAP2b (pELYAFPRV-NH(2)) were assayed for diuretic activity on Malpighian tubules of the housefly Musca domestica (M. domestica). The C-terminal hexapeptide proved to be the active core, the minimum sequence required to retain significant diuretic activity. However, full activity required the C-terminal heptapeptide, which wa...

Fungi isolated from environmentally challenging habitats can have adaptations of potential value when developed as insect pest-controls. Fungal isolates collected from Antarctica, Geomyces sp. I, Geomyces sp. II, Mortierella signyensis and M. alpina, were investigated for (i) growth characteristics at 0-35°C, (ii) spore production at 10 and 20°C, (iii) viability following exposure to freezing t...

OBJECTIVE To better comprehend the molecular structure and physiological function of the housefly larval peritrophic matrix (PM), a mass spectrometry approach was used to investigate the PM protein composition. METHODS The PM was dissected from the midgut of the third instar larvae, and protein extracted from the PM was evaluated using SDS-PAGE. A 1D-PAGE lane containing all protein bands was...