Recombinant entomopathogenic agents: a review of biotechnological approaches to pest insect control

Abstract

Although the use of chemical pesticides has decreased in recent years, it is still a common method of pest control. However, chemical use leads to challenging problems. The harm caused by these chemicals and the length of time that they will remain in the environment is of great concern to the future and safety of humans. Therefore, developing new pest control agents that are safer and environmentally compatible, as well as assuring their widespread use is important. Entomopathogenic agents are microorganisms that play an important role in the biological control of pest insects and are eco-friendly alternatives to chemical control. They consist of viruses (non-cellular organisms), bacteria (prokaryotic organisms), fungi and protists (eukaryotic organisms), and nematodes (multicellular organisms). Genetic modification (recombinant technology) provides potential new methods for developing entomopathogens to manage pests. In this review, we focus on the important roles of recombinant entomopathogens in terms of pest insect control, placing them into perspective with other views to discuss, examine and evaluate the use of entomopathogenic agents in biological control.

Infection against infection: parasite antagonism against parasites, viruses and bacteria

“…A low intensity of Schistosoma infection could improve the protective antimalarial immune response associated with the expression of related cytokines [18, 91, 94, 132], the permeability of the BBB [94], the DC response [94], and the differentiation and activation of Tregs [94], thereby potentially being protective against cerebral malaria. Vector modulation is another universally acknowledged hypothesis to explain antagonistic coinfection; quintessential examples of vector modulation include the effects of EPNs and Wolbachia [12, 13, 106, 123, 125, 127, 128, 133]. Other mechanisms underlying antagonism include interference competition and exploitation competition [61, 116, 134].…”

Vector-focused Approaches to Curb Malaria Transmission in the Brazilian Amazon: An Overview of Current and Future Challenges and Strategies

“…Genetic engineering methods have been proposed to increase the pathogenicity, improve longer-term efficacy, and prevent or delay insect resistance to entomopathogenic microorganisms [166,167]. The addition of Bti genes into Bs genomes to increase infectivity to mosquitoes [168,169] and the expression of Bt and non-Bt derived mosquito toxins in readily transformable microorganisms such as Chlorella desiccate, Pichia pastoris and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been investigated as alternatives to develop new microbial products for mosquito control [170,171,172].…”

Genetic Variation of Traits in Natural Enemies Relevant for Biological Control: A Systematic Review

“…More recently, there is increased attention on exploiting the large amount of intraspecific variation between, and even within, populations (Kruitwagen et al, 2018;Lommen et al, 2017). Recent studies have also suggested the use of genetic modification for increased effectiveness of BCAs, particularly in fungal and pathogen-based agents (Karabörklü et al, 2018;Lovett and St. Leger, 2018;St. Leger and Wang, 2010), as well as insects (Poppy and Powell, 2009;Routray et al, 2016).…”