Heterologous expression of cry1Ia12 insecticidal gene in cotton encodes resistance against pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae); an alternate insecticidal gene for insect pest management

• Published in: Molecular biology reports 2022-11, Vol.49 (11), p.10557-10564
• Main Authors: Tariq, Muhammad, Tabassum, Bushra, Bakhsh, Allah, Farooq, Abdul Munim, Qamar, Zahida, Akram, Faheem, Naz, Farah, Rao, Abdul Qayyum, Malik, Kausar, Nasir, Idrees Ahmad
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agrobacterium radiobacter; Animal Anatomy; Animal Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chewing; Cotton; Crops; Cultivars; Flowers; Gene expression; genetic vectors; genetically modified organisms; Harvesting; Helicoverpa armigera; heterologous gene expression; Histology; insect control; insect pests; instars; Larvae; Life Sciences; lint cotton; Morphology; Mortality; Original Article; Pectinophora gossypiella; Pest control; Pest resistance; resistance management; transgenes; Transgenic plants
• ISSN: 0301-4851; 1573-4978
• DOI: 10.1007/s11033-022-07824-0

Background Cotton is continuously exposed to sucking and chewing insect pest pressure since emergence to harvesting. Pink bollworm ( Pectinophora gossypiella ) has become major chewing insect pest to reduce the cotton yield and results in bad lint quality even in transgenic crops. The efficiency of insecticidal genes has been compromised due to extensive utilization of transgenic crops. Methods and Results The present study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of an alternate cry1Ia12 insecticidal gene against pink bollworm (PBW) in cotton. Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain LBA4404 harboring pCAMBIA2300 expression vector containing cry1Ia12 gene under the control of 35S CaMV was used to transform a local cotton cultivar GS-01. The various molecular analyses revealed the transgene integration and expression in primary transformants. Among five selected transgenic plants, tcL-08 showed maximum (16.06-fold) mRNA expression of cry1Ia12 gene whereas tcL-03 showed minimum (2.33-fold) expression. Feeding bioassays of 2nd and 3rd instar pink bollworm (PBW) larvae on immature cotton bolls, flowers and cotton squares revealed up to 33.33% mortality on tcL-08 while lowest mortality (13.33%) was observed in tcL-03 and tcL-15. Furthermore, the average weight and size of survived larvae fed on transgenic plants was significantly lesser than the average weight of larvae survived on non-transgenic plants. Conclusions The present study suggests the cry1Ia12 gene as an alternate insecticidal gene for the resistance management of cotton bollworms, especially PBW.