New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science abstracts

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Effects of kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) cysteine protease on growth and survival of Spodoptera litura larvae (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) fed with control or transgenic avidin-expressing tobacco

L. A. Malone
J. H. Todd
E. P. J. Burgess
B. A. Philip

The Horticulture and Food Research Institute
of New Zealand Limited
Private Bag 92169
Auckland, New Zealand
email: LMalone@hortresearch.co.nz

J. T. Christeller

The Horticulture and Food Research Institute
of New Zealand Limited
Private Bag 11030
Palmerston North, New Zealand

Abstract   Kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) produce a fruit cysteine protease, actinidain (synonym actinidin), of unknown function. Other plant cysteine proteases, such as Mir 1 from some varieties of maize and papain from papaya, confer protection against insect attack. To determine if actinidain could also reduce insect growth or survival, actinidain powder was painted on to tobacco leaves (at 0.1% of total leaf protein) and fed to neonate cotton leafworm larvae, Spodoptera litura. Larvae fed with actinidain were significantly smaller and took longer to pupate than those feeding on control, unpainted tobacco. To determine whether this growth inhibition could combine usefully with the effects of another insect control protein, S. litura larvae were also fed with transgenic tobacco leaves expressing (on average) 7.7 µM avidin, a biotin-binding protein, with or without actinidain painted on as described above. Larvae fed with avidin-expressing leaves painted with actinidain died slightly but significantly sooner than those on transgenic avidin-leaves without actinidain. We conclude that actinidain alone has a small but significant negative impact on S. litura larval development and, when combined with avidin, can result in a slightly faster kill than transgenic avidin-expressing leaves without actinidain.

Keywords   actinidain; avidin; biotin-binding protein; kiwifruit

H04078; Online publication date 13 May 2005 Received 7 September 2004; accepted 7 January 2005
New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 2005, Vol. 33: 99–105
0014-0671/05/3302-0105 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2005

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