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Isolation and characterization of a new Bacillus thuringiensis strain Lip harboring a new cry1Aa gene highly toxic to Ephestia kuehniella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) larvae

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to characterize new Bacillus thuringiensis strains that have a potent insecticidal activity against Ephestia kuehniella larvae. Strains harboring cry1A genes were tested for their toxicity, and the Lip strain showed a higher insecticidal activity compared to that of the reference strain HD1 (LC50 of Lip and HD1 were 33.27 and 128.61 μg toxin/g semolina, respectively). B. thuringiensis Lip harbors and expresses cry1Aa, cry1Ab, cry1Ac, cry1Ad and cry2A. DNA sequencing revealed several polymorphisms in Lip Cry1Aa and Cry1Ac compared to the corresponding proteins of HD1. The activation process using Ephestia kuehniella midgut juice showed that Lip Cry1A proteins were more stable in the presence of larval proteases. Moreover, LipCry1A proteins exhibited higher insecticidal activity against these larvae. These results indicate that Lip is an interesting strain that could be used as an alternative to the worldwide used strain HD1.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research (01-11-05), the “Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie” AUF (BMO) (PCSI fellow 2012–2013) and the research council of Saint Joseph University, Lebanon (FS32). Micheline El Khoury was funded by grant from AUF and the Lebanese national council for scientific research. We would like to thank Professor Patrick Shultz from the “Institut de génétique et de biologie moléculaire et cellulaire de Strasbourg” for electron microscopy analysis; Mr. Benoît Queffelec for the in vivo data analysis; Dr Vincent Sanchis from INRA, La minière, Paris and Dr Slim Tounsi from the Center of Biotechnology of Sfax, Tunisia for the manuscript revision; Ms. Souad Rouis and Ms. Nour Mouawad (Saint Joseph University, Lebanon) for their technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier, Equipe MACS, 8 rue de l’Ecole normale, Montpellier Cedex 5, France

    Micheline El Khoury & Joël Chopineau

  2. Faculty of Science, Biotechnology Laboratory, Unit of Technologies and Valorization of Agro resources, Saint-Joseph University, Beirut, Lebanon

    Micheline El Khoury & Mireille Kallassy Awad

  3. Biopesticides Team, Biotechnology Center of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia

    Hichem Azzouz & Nouha Abdelmalak

  4. Institut des Biomolécules Max Mousseron, UMR 5247 CNRS UM1-UM2, Montpellier, France

    Alain Chavanieu

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  1. Micheline El Khoury
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  2. Hichem Azzouz
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  3. Alain Chavanieu
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  4. Nouha Abdelmalak
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  5. Joël Chopineau
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  6. Mireille Kallassy Awad
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Correspondence to Mireille Kallassy Awad.

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Communicated by Shuang-Jiang Liu.

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El Khoury, M., Azzouz, H., Chavanieu, A. et al. Isolation and characterization of a new Bacillus thuringiensis strain Lip harboring a new cry1Aa gene highly toxic to Ephestia kuehniella (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) larvae. Arch Microbiol 196, 435–444 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-014-0981-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00203-014-0981-3

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