Abstract
Culex quinquefasciatus, also known as the house mosquito, is a harmful species capable of transmitting serious diseases to humans and animals. It is also regarded as an unpleasant agent due to the stings it inflicts on humans. The control of this insect is especially based on conventional chemical insecticides such as organophosphorus and carbamates. However, due to the widespread use of these components, C. quinquefasciatus has developed remarkable resistance, rendering these insecticides ineffective. On the other hand, the negative effects of these products on human health and the environment have been widely discussed. Returning to natural bioactive components is thus an ideal way to solve this issue. The destruxins (Dxt) of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae are known to have biocidal effects on harmful insects. The enzyme chitinase is an attractive target for screening the bioinsecticidal activity of destruxins due to its involvement in the biosynthesis of the insect cuticle. An in-silico investigation was therefore performed to confirm the hypothesis of the bioinsecticidal potential of the M. anisopliae OB4 strain's destruxins against C. quinquefasciatus’ chitinase. First, the identification of the OB4 strain's destruxins was performed by HPLC and LC–ESI–MS. Among the destruxins identified, Dxt A and Dxt B showed the most promising results for the docking assay. These two toxins were then the subject of an MD simulation analysis, the results of RMSD, RMSF, Rg, hydrogen bonds, SASA, and MM-PBSA analyses confirm the effectiveness of these two molecules, reflected by the stability of their interactions with the chitinase. Destruxins A and B may therefore be of great interest in the field of biological control against the insect C. quinquefasciatus and their efficacy merits further inquiry on in vitro and in vivo fields.
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Abbreviations
- Dxt:
-
Destruxins
- RMSD:
-
Root-mean-square deviation
- RMSF:
-
Root-mean-square-fluctuations
- Rg:
-
Radius of gyration
- SASA:
-
Solvent accessible surface area
- MM-PBSA:
-
Molecular Mechanics/Poisson − Boltzmann Surface Area
- CID:
-
Collision-induced dissociation
- DOPE:
-
Discrete Optimized Protein Energy Score
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O. BENSLAMA conceived and designed the research, performed the data analysis, and wrote the manuscript. O. BENSERRADJ performed the data analysis and conceived the research. I.M. supervised the analysis of the destruxins isolation and identification. S.G revised the manuscript.
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Benslama, O., Benserradj, O., Ghorri, S. et al. Identification and virtual based screening of the bioinsecticidal potential of Metarhizium anisopliae destruxins as inhibitors of Culex quinquefasciatus chitinase activity. Biologia 77, 2643–2656 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-022-01103-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-022-01103-w