PRODUCTION OF INSECT SEMIOCHEMICALS BY GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROP PLANTS

Project Information

Grant agreement ID: SC1*0076

Project closed

Start date 1 December 1988

End date 31 March 1992

Funded under

• Programme plan (EEC) to stimulate the international cooperation and interchange needed by European research scientists (SCIENCE), 1988-1992

Total cost No data

EU contribution No data

Coordinated by

CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Spain

Objective

One of the key enzymes involved in moth phermone biosynthesis, palmitoyl coenzyme A Delta-11 desaturase, has been characterized in subcellular fractions from pheromonal glands of adult female Spodoptera littoralis. Desaturase activity was dependent on the presence of pyridine nucleotides with nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP) better electron donor than reduced NADP (NADPH). Incubation with free acids showed the highest activity for palmitic acid followed by myristic and stearic acids. (Z)-11-hexadecenoic acid (methyl ester) was the product of desaturase activity. The optimal pH for the enzyme was 6.8-7.2 at 25 C.
With the general aim to make insect semiochemicals more widely available for crop protection, the production of different insect sex pheromones by genetically engineered crop plants will be studied. Biosynthetic routes to Lepidopteran sex pheromones involved as crucial step dehydrogenation at specific sites of C18 and C16 aliphatic chains. In the present study the gene responsible for producing the -11 desaturase would be transferred to a crop plant to enable it to provide the source of Lepidopteran sex phermones with C16 carbon chains unsaturated at C11, such as those of several important pests, diamondback moth Pluttellaxylostel and Sesamia spp. enabling insect mating disruption.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• agricultural sciences › agriculture, forestry, and fisheries › agriculture
• natural sciences › biological sciences › genetics › nucleotides
• natural sciences › biological sciences › biochemistry › biomolecules › proteins › enzymes

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Programme(s)

• FP2-SCIENCE - Programme plan (EEC) to stimulate the international cooperation and interchange needed by European research scientists (SCIENCE), 1988-1992

Topic(s)

Data not available

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

CSC - Cost-sharing contracts

Coordinator

CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS

• EU contribution: No data
• Address: Calle Serrano 117 ; MADRID ; Spain
• Total cost: No data

Participants (1)

ROTHAMSTED RESEARCH LIMITED

United Kingdom

• EU contribution: No data
• Address: West Common ; AL5 2JQ Harpenden, Herts
• Total cost: No data