抗虫植物基因工程研究进展

PROCEEDING IN PLANT ANTI-INSECT GENETIC ENGINEERING

虫害是造成农业减产的主要原因之一。据不完全统计,全世界每年因虫害引起的作物减产达总产量的15％,损失高达数千亿美元。在我国,因虫害水稻减产在lO％以上;小麦减产近20％;

The recent proceeding in plant insect resistance genetic engineering was reviewed here. The Bacillus thuringiensis insecticidal crystal protein (Bt-toxins) were the most intensively studied insect toxins. Recent studies mainly concentrated on the isolation of novel Bt-toxins, modification of Bt-toxin by means of code replacement, splicing and enhancing the expressing amount; Proteinase inhibitor genes and lectin genes were promising genes applied in agriculture. The proteinase inhibitor genes such as cowpea trypsin inhibitor kill the pests by inhibiting their digestive function while lectins induced illness of the pests. Some invertebrate such as scorpion and spider can produce some insect toxin targeted on insect selectively. They were another promising insect toxin genes that could be used in agriculture because they were harmless to animal and human being. The modified baculovirus with some insect toxins can kill the pests more fast and widely, they were also used in anti-insect engineering. Some problems have arisen in plant anti-insect genetic engineering. Pests evolved the resistance to the transgenic plants in recent years. An effective pathway to solve this problem is to induce more insect toxin genes to one plant at the same time. Another problem is how to enhance the expressing amount of toxin proteins. Those will become the major directions of plant anti-insect genetic engineering.