Recently, the cotton molecular genetic improvement innovation team of the Cotton Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences discovered a new high-efficiency broad-spectrum insecticidal protein in cotton, which can effectively poison lepidopteran pests. The findings were published in Nature Plants.
Lepidopteran pests such as fall armyworm, cotton bollworm, corn borer, rice leaf roller, diamondback moth and other lepidopteran pests are recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as major agricultural pests in the world, posing a major threat to agricultural production, and new insecticidal proteins are urgently needed to strengthen prevention and control.
Mechanism of action of new high-efficiency broad-spectrum insecticidal protein from cotton source (courtesy of Cotton Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences)
In this study, a new natural insecticidal protein was identified in cotton, which showed significant insect resistance to both cotton bollworm and fall armyworm, and the insecticidal mechanism of this protein was completely different from that of Bacillus thuringiensis protein, and the two proteins had good complementarity and a wider insecticidal spectrum. In this study, new germplasms of cotton, maize, rice, and tobacco overexpressing the insecticidal protein were created, and showed high resistance to lepidopteran pests including fall armyworm, cotton bollworm, corn borer, rice leaf roller, diamondback moth, tobacco moth, wax borer, spodoptera exigua, dimorphic borer, and Spodoptera litura. The results show that the insecticidal protein has broad-spectrum insecticidal properties against lepidopteran pests, and can be used as a green biopesticide for the prevention and control of various types of lepidopteran pests and is environmentally friendly without residue, and can replace the genes of Bacillus thuringiensis to develop lepidopteran pest-resistant crops, which will play an important role in global agricultural production.
The research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and other projects.
Original link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-024-01682-3
- Source: Cotton Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
- Editor: Jiang Jiang
- Typesetting: Xiaotong