The raspberry weevil, Aegorhinus superciliosus (Guérin) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), is an economically important pest of blueberry in southern Chile. The digestive protease activity of adult insects was investigated using general and specific substrates and inhibitors. Enzymatic assays demonstrated the presence of trypsin- and chymotrypsin-like serine proteinases. Furthermore, in vitro assays using phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF) and soybean trypsin inhibitor (SBTI) at 0.01 and 0.1 mM showed percentages of enzymatic inhibition between 0 and 16% for PMSF and 67 to 76% for SBTI, whereas in vivo assays indicated that SBTI caused between 50 and 90% mortality in males and between 80 and 100% in females. Our data indicate the presence of serine proteases and suggest that digestive proteases could be a target for the design and development of strategies to control the raspberry weevil.
A morphological and histological study was performed on the digestive system of Aegorhinus superciliosus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), an important economic pest in southern Chile. This species has a typical digestive system for most insects, being similar in males and females, but longer in the latter, being twice the length of the insect. The digestive system is a long tube of variable diameter, divided into three regions: foregut, midgut and hindgut. From the histological point of view, it presents epithelium tissue features similar to the one described for other species, and externally it has a muscle tissue with no differences between males and females. Nevertheless, it shows features which differ either in other weevils or in beetles such as: absence of crop, the location and number of gastric caeca, presence of peritrophic membrane, and absence of a rectal pad.
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