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Expression of Bacillus thuringiensis Toxins in Insect Cells

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Bacillus thuringiensis and Lysinibacillus sphaericus

Abstract

Baculoviruses and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are biological control agents used for the control of agricultural insect pests and also insect vectors of human diseases. The expression of Cry proteins in insect cells using recombinant baculoviruses has been shown to be an alternative means of production of these proteins for functional and/or structural studies. The combination of the insecticidal activity of Bt and baculovirus lethal infection also has the potential to improve viral pathogenicity toward their insect hosts. The easy manipulation of baculovirus genomes and the increased number of full baculovirus genome sequences available could facilitate the expression of Cry proteins and, besides improving their pathogenicity, also retard the development of resistant insects to both Cry proteins and virus replication. In this chapter, the construction of recombinant baculoviruses containing different cry genes (cry1, cry2, cry4, cry10, and cry11) and the expression of the corresponding Cry proteins in insect cells and insect larvae are described.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biologia Celular, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Bergmann Morais Ribeiro & Roberto Franco Teixeira Corrêa

  2. Instituto MatoGrossense do Algodão, Unidade Brasília, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Érica Soares Martins

  3. Universidade Federal do Tocantins – UFT, Gurupi, TO, Brazil

    Raimundo Wagner de Souza Aguiar & Roberto Franco Teixeira Corrêa

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  1. Bergmann Morais Ribeiro
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  2. Érica Soares Martins
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  3. Raimundo Wagner de Souza Aguiar
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  4. Roberto Franco Teixeira Corrêa
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Correspondence to Bergmann Morais Ribeiro .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Control Agro Bio Pesquisa e Defesa, Agropecuária Ltda, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Lidia Mariana Fiuza

  2. Plant Protection Department, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Jaboticabal, Brazil

    Ricardo Antonio Polanczyk

  3. School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

    Neil Crickmore

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Ribeiro, B.M., Martins, É.S., de Souza Aguiar, R.W., Corrêa, R.F.T. (2017). Expression of Bacillus thuringiensis Toxins in Insect Cells. In: Fiuza, L., Polanczyk, R., Crickmore, N. (eds) Bacillus thuringiensis and Lysinibacillus sphaericus. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56678-8_8

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