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The genome of the <i>Bacillus thuringiensis</i> BM311.1 strain was sequenced and assembled in 359 contigs containing a total of 6,390,221 bp. The plasmidic ORF of a putative <i>cry</i> gene from this strain was identified as a potential novel Cry protein of 1138 amino acid residues with a 98% identity compared to Cry7Aa1 and a predicted molecular mass of 129.4 kDa. The primary structure of Cry7Aa2, which had eight conserved blocks and the classical structure of three domains, differed in 28 amino acid residues from that of Cry7Aa1. The <i>cry7Aa2</i> gene was amplified by PCR and then expressed in the acrystalliferous strain BMB171. SDS-PAGE analysis confirmed the predicted molecular mass for the Cry7Aa2 protein and revealed that after in vitro trypsin incubation, the protein was degraded to a toxin of 62 kDa. However, when treated with digestive fluids from <i>Leptinotarsa decemlineata</i> larvae, one major proteinase-resistant fragment of slightly smaller size was produced. The spore and crystal mixture produced by the wild-type BM311.1 strain against <i>L. decemlineata</i> neonate larvae resulted in a LC₅₀ value of 18.8 &#956;g/mL, which was statistically similar to the estimated LC₅₀ of 20.8 &#956;g/mL for the recombinant BMB17-Cry7Aa2 strain. In addition, when this novel toxin was activated in vitro with commercial trypsin, the LC₅₀ value was reduced 3.8-fold to LC₅₀ = 4.9 &#956;g/mL. The potential advantages of Cry7Aa2 protoxin compared to Cry7Aa1 protoxin when used in the control of insect pests are discussed.