Summary: Bacillus thuringiensis crystal proteins that
target nematodes
Jun-Zhi Wei§
, Kristina Hale
, Lynn Carta¶
, Edward Platzer , Cynthie Wong
, Su-Chiung Fang
, and Raffi V. Aroian*,
**
Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California, San Diego, CA 92093-0349; ¶Nematology Laboratory, U.S. Department of
Agriculture­Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, Beltsville, MD 20705; and Department of Nematology and
Biology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521
Communicated by Dan L. Lindsley, Jr., University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, January 3, 2003 (received for review September 20, 2002)
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crystal proteins are pore-forming toxins
used as insecticides around the world. Previously, the extent to
which these proteins might also target the invertebrate phylum
Nematoda has been mostly ignored. We have expressed seven
different crystal toxin proteins from two largely unstudied Bt
crystal protein subfamilies. By assaying their toxicity on diverse
free-living nematode species, we demonstrate that four of these

Source: Aroian, Raffi V. - Division of Biological Sciences, University of California at San Diego

Collections: Biology and Medicine