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Genetic engineering of bacterial insecticides for improved efficacy against medically important Diptera

  • Chapter
Entomopathogenic Bacteria: from Laboratory to Field Application

Abstract

Bacterial insecticides have been in use for control of agricultural pests and vector and nuisance mosquitoes and blackflies for more than two decades. Nevertheless, these insecticides constitute less than 2% of the market world-wide due primarily to their low to moderate efficacy in comparison to chemical insecticides. Recombinant DNA techniques have made it possible to improve the efficacy of bacterial insecticides from 2 to 10-fold by markedly increasing the synthesis of insecticidal proteins, and by enabling new combinations of insecticidal proteins from different bacteria to be produced within single strains. This chapter reviews the use of promoters, 3’ and 5’ enhancer elements, and chaperone-like proteins in conjunction with shuttle expression vectors to improve the efficacy of bacterial insecticides, with an emphasis on those used in mosquito and blackfly control. The prospects for additional improvements in efficacy and extending the use of this technology to other bacterial species are also discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology and Interdépartementale Graduate Program in Genetics, University of California-Riverside, Riverside, California, 92521, USA

    Brian A. Federici, Hyun-Woo Park, Dennis K. Bideshi & Baoxue Ge

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  1. Brian A. Federici
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  2. Hyun-Woo Park
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  3. Dennis K. Bideshi
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  4. Baoxue Ge
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  1. Institut Pasteur, Paris, France

    Jean-François Charles , Armelle Delécluse  & Christina Nielsen-Le Roux ,  & 

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Federici, B.A., Park, HW., Bideshi, D.K., Ge, B. (2000). Genetic engineering of bacterial insecticides for improved efficacy against medically important Diptera. In: Charles, JF., Delécluse, A., Roux, C.NL. (eds) Entomopathogenic Bacteria: from Laboratory to Field Application. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1429-7_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1429-7_25

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