| Abstract: | Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) exhibits strong insecticidal activity and is harmless to non-target organisms such as human and animals. Bt becomes the most commonly used environment-friendly insecticidal microorganism. However, the insecticidal activities of different Bt strains variy significantly. Therefore, it is particularly important to compare the insecticidal activities of different strains and explore their insecticidal effector mechanisms to expand Bt insecticidal spectrum and enrich transgenic resources. Here, the insecticidal activities of Vip3Aa57 and Vip3Aa62 strains, carrying vegetative insecticidal protein-encoding genes that were inserted into the expression vector pET-21b and transformed into Escherichia coli Rosetta (DE3) strain, expressing 88 ku protein, were compared. Vip3Aa57 protein reportedly displayed body weight inhibition effect on Spodoptera exigua without affecting Heliothis armigera while Vip3Aa62 protein was known to have strong insecticidal activity against S. exigua (LC50=5.124 ng ? mg-1). A low H. armigera activity (LC50=870.1 ng ? mg-1) was observed. The paraffin sectioning results showed that Vip3Aa57 protein affected S. exigua midgut cell morphology. The laser confocal microscopic imaging results showed that Vip3Aa57 bound to receptors in the midgut without damaging the midgut tissue morphology. This study would be conducive for making full use of Bt strains in the soil to compare the insecticidal activities of different Vip insecticidal genes. It could thus provide significant help in revealing the underlying insecticidal mechanisms of Vip3Aa insecticidal genes, developing new insecticidal proteins and delaying pest resistance problems. |
