Vegetative insecticidal protein (Vip) is a class of insecticidal proteins produced by many Bacillus thuringiensis strains during their vegetative growth stage. The vip3LB gene of B. thuringiensis strain BUPM95, which encodes a protein active against the Lepidoptera olive tree pathogenic insect Prays oleae, was cloned into pET-14b vector and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. The expressed Vip3LB protein, found in the E. coli cytoplasmic fraction, was purified and used to produce anti-Vip3LB antibodies. Using the midgut extract of P. oleae, the purified Vip3LB bound to a 65-kDa protein, whereas Cry1Ac toxin bound to a 210-kDa midgut putative receptor. This result justifies the importance of the biological pest control agent Vip3LB that could be used as another alternative particularly in case of resistance to Cry toxins.

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A synthetic gene encoding a single chain Fv fragment of an antibody directed against the nuclear inclusion a (NIa) protein of potato virus Y (PVY) was used to transform two commercial potato cultivars (Claustar and BF15). The NIa protease forms the nuclear inclusion body A and acts as the major protease in the cleavage of the viral polyprotein into functional proteins. Immunoblot analysis showed that most of the resulting transgenic plants accumulate high levels of the transgenic protein. Furthermore, a majority of the selected transgenic lines showed an efficient and complete protection against the challenge virus after mechanical inoculation with PVYO strain. Two transgenic lines showed an incomplete resistance with delayed appearance of symptoms accompanied by low virus titers, whereas one line developed symptoms during the first days after inoculation but recovered rapidly, leading to a low virus accumulation rate. These results confirm that expression of scFv antibody is able to inhibit a crucial step in the virus multiplication, such as polyprotein cleavage is a powerful strategy for engineered virus resistance. It can lead to a complete resistance that was not obtained previously by expression of scFv directed against the viral coat protein.

BLB1 is a new Bacillus thuringiensis kurstaki strain, isolated from a Tunisian soil sample. Assay of toxicity of BLB1 crystal proteins resulted in an LC50 of 70.32 ng of toxin per mg of flour against third instar Ephestia kuehniella with confidence limits of (31.6-109.04 ng). This LC50 is less than that of the commercial strains HD1 used as a reference. The characterization of this strain by scanning transmission electron microscopy, analysis of its cry genes content by PCR-sequencing, and analysis of its delta-endotoxin patterns demonstrate that it belongs to the same subgroup than HD1, but ruled out the involvement of cry gene content or protoxin activation in the hypertoxicity of this strain. Taking into account the delta-endotoxin/spore ratio for each strain, and by allowing the estimation of the production level per spore, it might be concluded that BLB1 production is the highest, when compared with that of HD1. On the basis of its toxicity, BLB1 could be considered as a strain of great interest and would allow the production of quantities of bioinsecticides at low cost.

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