Insecticidal genes in Pest Management

Abstract

Sessile plants face a variety of abiotic stresses, making them vulnerable to insect pests. Successful crop establishments can only be assured with effective eco-friendly management practices. Unfortunately, most of these practices harness natural resources, but recently, genetic engineering has emerged as a viable alternative against plant insect pests. Insecticidal protein in bacteria which express constitutively once introgressed through r-DNA technology have shown efficacy against lepidopteran and coleopteran pests. Indigenous expression of plant secondary metabolites like flavonoids shows negative effects on insect pest reproduction. Genetic engineering of plants expressing insect cell wall (containing structural polysaccharides like chitin) degrading enzymes showed efficacy of insecticidal potential. The basic principle behind the digestion of ingested food is to hydrolyze it with an enzyme. Such gut enzymes of insects get attenuated when they come across the enzyme inhibitors (such as protease inhibitors, alpha-amylase inhibitors etc) present in the fed portion of the plants. All of these genes encoding insecticidal compounds are abundant in nature. This review intends to summarize the progress made in this area using genetic engineering to successfully come up with transgenes against plant insect pests.