Development and applications of destruxins: A review

Unveiling the biosynthetic puzzle of destruxins in Metarhizium species

“…However, our bioassays showed that the effects of dtxs on fungal virulence differed between locusts and caterpillars. This could reflect differences in the insect physiology of the target sites for dtx activity and/or dtx detoxification, as reported for plants that break down dtx B (2,8). Locusts may have a greater ability to detoxify dtxs than silkworms because no significant differences were observed between the WT and ΔdtxS1.…”

“…Given that the dtxs are insecticidal to a large variety of insects (2,4), it is not surprising that, unlike Metarhizium generalists, the specialist species do not have the dtxS1 gene to produce dtxs. We showed that the specialists evolved before the generalist species.…”

“…virulence | insect biocontrol | tailoring enzyme I nsect pathogenic fungi produce a plethora of bioactive metabolites, including 39 cyclic hexadepsipeptide destruxins (dtxs) (1,2). These insecticidal compounds were first identified more than 50 y ago (3), but the genes responsible for their biosynthesis have been unknown.…”

“…1). The known dtxs are categorized into six major groups: the dtxs A through F and their derivatives (2,4). No single fungal species or strain produces all of these dtxs.…”

Characterization of a new toxin from the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae: the ribotoxin anisoplin

“…Regarding factors involved in its pathogenicity, the most studied ones are destruxins, a family of ciclodepsipeptides also present in other insect pathogenic fungi (Schrank and Vainstein, 2010;Liu and Tzeng, 2012;Wang et al, 2012). However, identification and characterization of new toxins will help, not only to better understand the biology of this fungus but also to provide new tools for the improvement of biopesticides.…”