Antimetabolites in the nutrition of Aedes aegypti L. larvae nicotinic acid analogues

Abstract

Nicotinic acid antagonists have been employed in studies of insect nutrition (Shyamala & Bhat, 1958; Levinson & Bergmann, 1959), insect tissue cultures (Sanborn & Haskell, 1960), and insect development (Blaustein & Schneiderman, 1960). The effects obtained have usually been attributed to vitamin deficiencies. However, there is little direct evidence that antimetabolites affect insects in the same manner as they do higher animals. Few quantitative studies on the antivitamin-vitamin relationship, with insects as experimental animnals, are available. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of five better-known nicotinic acid analogues on Aede8 aegypti L. larvae, grown on a chemically defined diet. The specificity of the nicotinic acid requirement of various organisms has been extensively studied. Dietary nicotinic acid can be replaced by tryptophan, many nicotinamide derivatives, and even some nicotinic acid analogues (Hundley, 1954). Small doses of 3-acetylpyridine had a vitamin-like activity for the dog and the rat (McDaniel, Hundley & Sebrell, 1955; Guggenheim & Diamant, 1958). The nicotinamide-3-acetylpyridine relationship was, therefore, studied in mosquito larvae, given a basic casein diet, on which the exact nicotinamide requirements were determined.