About this Agricultural and Biological Sciences article

Can selective peptides be combined efficiently with agrochemicals? A new approach to insect control by Gordon, Dalia is a Agricultural and Biological Sciences article available to read on EtoBox.

Sodium channels have been a major target for the development of insecticides such as synthetic pyrethroids. However, insecticides currently available induce resistance and present limited selectivity to insect pests. Molecular and biochemical studies, as well as binding experiments using radiolabelled neurotoxins, have shown that sodium channels expressed in various insect orders must be structurally and pharmacologically different. At least three groups of peptide neurotoxins derived from scorpion venom are highly active on insects and very weakly or practically inactive on mammals. It is proposed that various insecticides are examined for possible cooperative interactions with the peptide toxins highly active on insects, and pairs of ligands are identi®ed that will increase the selectivity not only between mammals and insects but also between different pest and non-pest insects. This is feasible on the basis of the differential allosteric modulations observed between LqhaIT, an a-toxin highly active on insects, and brevetoxin on locust versus cockroach and rat brain sodium channels. Moreover, combination of LqhaIT with the pyrethroid deltamethrin increased the binding of [ 125 I]

Author

Gordon, Dalia

Publisher

John Wiley and Sons; Wiley (John Wiley & Sons); John Wiley & Sons Inc.; Wiley (ISSN 1526-498X)

Published

1999

Language

EN

Field

Agricultural and Biological Sciences (Life Sciences)