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Larval midgut protease activity of Illiberis pruni (Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae) feeding on multiple characteristic hosts

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Abstract

Illiberis pruni (Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae) is a key polyphagous pest of pear, apple and crabapple trees. Protease secreted by insect midgut plays an indispensable role in the absorption and digestion of host plant nutrients. To understand the relationship between protease activity and different host plants, the activity of midgut proteases of I. pruni larvae were measured in this study. By detecting protease activities with enzyme specific substrates, it was found that the optimal buffers for total protease, high-alkaline trypsin, low-alkaline trypsin and chymotrypsin are Tris-HCl, glycine/NaOH, glycine/NaOH and KH2PO4/NaOH, and the optimal pH values are 11.0, 11.0, 9.0 and 9.0, respectively. The results showed that protease activity was different across different developmental stages of I. pruni larvae, and that host plant species express the most significant differences on midgut proteases of 4th instar larvae. The protease activities of I. pruni larvae feeding on host plant species with different characteristics are significantly distinct. It was observed that when I. pruni larvae ingest Pyrus bretschneideri, the activity of the protease was highest. In contrast, when ingesting Malus pumila and Chaenomeles cathayensis, the activity of the proteases were found to be lowest. When 5th instar I. pruni larvae ingest C. cathayensis, the activity of total proteases and high-alkalinity were higher in the fruit feeding than in the leaves feeding. In practical orchard applications, we can reduce damage to fruit trees by redistributing the cultivation structure of fruit forest structure by optimally cultivating various host species to limit minimize pest outbreaks.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript. Financial assistance was provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31871971, 31772503), and the Key Science and Technology Project of Shaanxi Province (2020zdzx03-03-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Integrated Pest Management on Crops in Northwestern Loess Plateau, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Plant Protection, Northwest A&F University, 712100, Yangling, Shaanxi, China

    Dongbiao Lv, Xueying Liu, Yanlu Dong, Zizheng Yan, Xuan Zhang, Jingyi Ren & Yiping Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Plant Protection Resources and Pest Management, Ministry of Education, College of Plant Protection, Northwest A&F University, 712100, Yangling, Shaanxi, China

    Dongbiao Lv, Xueying Liu, Yanlu Dong, Zizheng Yan, Xuan Zhang, Jingyi Ren & Yiping Li

  3. Department of Entomology, Cornell University, 14456, Geneva, NY, USA

    Ping Wang

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Contributions

Lv DB and Liu XY participated in the design of the study, performed the experiments and data analysis, generated the Figures and Tables, and helped draft the manuscript; Dong YL, Yan ZZ, Zhang X and Ren JY helped Lv DB to perform the experiments; Li YP and Wang P conceived the study, designed the study, coordinated the study and drafted the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yiping Li.

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Lv, D., Liu, X., Dong, Y. et al. Larval midgut protease activity of Illiberis pruni (Lepidoptera: Zygaenidae) feeding on multiple characteristic hosts. Phytoparasitica 50, 1033–1042 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12600-022-01019-w

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