noticias de interés

Versión en Español

Science versus Plague

Date: (30/11/2009)

Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas

Toxins for practicing a biological control on insects are studied in the School of Biological Sciences.

UANL researcher and professor, Dr. Benito Pereyra Alferez in the FCB Institute of Biotechnology

By Gabriela Hernandez Villanueva

Since human being learned to work the land for processing his own food, some of his strongest enemies have been the plague.

As a result, the search for products that attack the damaging species has been the study area of many specialists in this area.

The Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (UANL) School of Biological Sciences (FCB, Spanish abbreviation) Institute of Biotechnology is looking for solutions for problems caused by plagues through research team.

“We are making essential and basic science at the Institute of Biotechnology. We study how the genes are regulated and how their action mechanisms are.”

“We have been working with some highly toxic stumps against some insects and we decided to characterize –molecularly- them. We clone and identify the nucleotide substance of a specific gen which was from Cry l a-b serial.”

“The immediate use gotten with these entomopathogenic microorganisms (organisms which cause diseases on insects, bacteria, virus, protozoons and mushrooms) is in toxin produced by ‘Bacillus thuringiensis.’ This toxin kills insects which are a plague for agriculture,” said Doctor of Sciences major in Biotechnology by the FCB, Benito Pereyra Alfarez.

“Even though the Cry proteins present differences at the primary structure, they share the same activation pattern and action method.”

“The toxic profile gets started when insects’ larvae consume crystals; the toxins are solubilized and processed by mid intestine’s proteases, creating a toxic fragment.”

“The toxic fragment gets connected to specific receptors of the epithelial cells, creating pores in plasmatic membrane, causing cellular lysis, normally, death,” said Pereyra Alferez.

UANL researcher and professor said that carrying out this study has helped them to practice a biological control on plague which attacks vegetable species.

“Bioinsecticides’ success which comes from ‘Bacillus thuringiensis’ is due to the insecticide action of parasporal crystal, which can be composed by one or several proteins called d-endotoxins or Cry proteins.”

“These proteins can be toxic to different kind of insects, mainly lepidopterons, dipterans, coleopterans and specific nematodes and protozoarians,” scientist said.

Society has noticed the advance in this field because of the science and technology’s development.

Currently, there are endless pesticides which try to exterminate or control invading insects.

On the other hand, so important applications for health area research have been found with some toxins generated by ‘Bacillus thuringiensis.’

“Recently, some ‘Bacillus thuringiensis’ proteins could got the activity against specific types of anomalous for human being such as tumoral cells.”

“Some studies about all this have been carried out in our School. However, it is interesting to see previous time, how a group of researchers, in Japan, have been reported new ‘Bacillus thuringiensis’ biological activities.

“We are also interested in that part (biochemical) and we are going to study it. It is too important how ‘Bacillus thuringiensis’ toxins can kill human but modified cells, in other words, human cells like tumor or cancer,” said Doctor Benito Pereyra Alferez.

Note:

Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a flagellate, sporulating and a gram-positive bacillus which produces, during the sporulation, a toxic crystal of protein for insects as well known as delta-endotoxine.

** Benito Preyra Alferez got a Doctorate Degree of Sciences major in Biotechnology. His study areas are Genetics and Biochemistry of entomopathogens major in ‘Molecular Biology.’

Currently, he is a member of the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT, Spanish abbreviation) National System of Researchers, Level I: full time and UANL group of researchers.

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