Digestive proteolytic activity in larvae of tomato moth, Lacanobia oleracea; effects of plant protease inhibitors in vitro and in vivo

Effect of trypsin inhibitor from Crotalaria pallida seeds on Callosobruchus maculatus (cowpea weevil) and Ceratitis capitata (fruit fly)

“…SKTI and CpTI (cowpea trypsin inhibitor) were shown to be active against tomato moth larvae (L. oleracea). Serine proteinases [24] acted on H. armigera, H. virenscens and L. cuprina, in which SKTI was the most effective among the inhibitors tested [54][55][56][57][58][59]. ApTI (Adenanthera pavonina trypsin inhibitor) and DMTI-II (Dimorphandra mollis trypsin inhibitor) inhibited 84% [20] and 80% [47] of the digestive trypsin-like enzymes of C. maculatus, a Colepteran (Bruchidae).…”

“…Most of these inhibitors bind to cognate enzymes according to a common substrate-like canonical mechanism [17]. Among them, the Kunitz trypsin inhibitor super family [23] has gained particular attention for its specific activity against trypsin-like serine proteinases, with no inhibition of other proteinase classes [24]. Furthermore, Kunitz trypsin inhibitors were capable of inhibiting the proteolytic activity of several lepidopterans, such as the black cutworm (Agrotis ipsilon), corn earworm (H. zea), tobacco budworm (Heliothis virescens), Western spruce budworm (Choristoneura occidentalis) [25] and coleopterans such as the cotton boll weevil (A. grandis) [10].…”

Purification and characterization of trypsin inhibitor from Cicer arietinum L. and its efficacy against Helicoverpa armigera

“…These results revealed the efficacy of chickpea trypsin inhibitor against H. armigera larvae. Several reports suggested that trypsin inhibitors could affect pest development when expressed in a heterologous system (Broadway and Duffey, 1986;Gatehouse et al, 1999) …”

“…Kunitz inhibitors are usually 8,000-22,000 Da proteins, with two disulphide linkages and a single reactive site of trypsin, whereas Bowman-Birk inhibitors are usually 8000-10000 Da proteins, with seven disulfide linkages and two reactive sites of trypsin and chymotrypsin (Laskowski and Qasim, 2000). Protease inhibitors play important role in plant defense mechanism by preventing proteolysis in the midgut of insect larvae leading to their starvation and subsequent death (Gatehouse et al, 1999). This fact can be interpreted as a potential strategy for increasing the level of plant defense against insects (Koiwa et al, 1997).…”

Molecular Cloning, Gene Structure, Expression, and Enzyme Activity of a Serine Protease from Water Scorpion, Laccotrephes japonensis (Hemiptera: Nepidae)

“…(Barrett and Rawlings, 1995;Elvin et al, 1993;Nagano et al, 2003;Rao et al, 1998). These enzymes have been detected in several insect orders, including Coleoptera (Zhu and Baker, 1999), Diptera (Jiang et al, 1997) and Lepidoptera (Gatehouse et al, 1999), and are one of the major classes of endopeptidases, strongly implicated in the digestion of proteins in the gut (Terra and Ferreira, 1994). The bugs of Nepoidea, including Belostomatidae and Nepidae, prey upon a variety of aquatic animals such as insects, snails, reptiles, anurans, and small fish in Japanese rice fields (Mori and Ohba, 2004;Ohba and Nakasuji, 2006).…”