Recent developments in transgenic insect technology

In this short review, David O'Brochta and Peter Atkinson examine recent progress in the development of transgenic insect technology. To date, only Drosophila melanogaster and a few closely related species can be routinely transformed; transformation is far from routine in all other insects. The key bottleneck that has impeded progress has been the identification of transposable elements or viruses that are mobile in target species such as the mosquito, Anopheles gambiae. These mobile genetic elements will serve as platforms upon which effective gene vectors, genetagging agents and enhancer traps will be designed and constructed. Significant progress has been made on a number of research fronts.     

Future prospects for transgenic crops

Transgenic (genetically modified) crops are grown at present on more than 40 million hectares in 13 countries around the world. These `first generation' products principally comprise soybean, maize (corn) and cotton resistant to herbicides and/or insects. This review considers the wide range of `second generation' products under development and testing in many commercial and academic laboratories. Such products include examples for a variety of food, medical, veterinary and industrial purposes. In addition the review assesses the present state of public acceptance of transgenic products.     

中国昆虫趋光性及灯光诱虫技术的发展、成就与展望

害虫灯光诱控技术是一种利用昆虫的趋光性来进行害虫防治的技术,具有高效、环保、无残留、不产生抗性等特点。本文系统综述了我国建国70年来灯光诱控技术的发展与成就,分析了该技术研究和应用存在的问题,进而展望了其未来的发展趋势。     

Recent developments and future prospects of Vitreoscilla hemoglobin application in metabolic engineering

In hypoxic conditions, bacteria express a kind of hemoglobin, which is proposed to enhance respiration and energy metabolism by promoting oxygen delivery. Bacteria hemoglobin from Vitreoscilla stercoraria - Vitreoscilla hemoglobin (VHb), when expressed in various hosts in oxygen-limited conditions, has been shown to improve growth, protein secretion, metabolite productivity and stress resistance of hosts, thus rendering the protein promising in metabolic engineering, especially in plant metabolism optimization. In this review, many well-studies areas are presented to illustrate the potential of VHb application in biotechnology industry, to discuss the cellular mechanisms of VHb function and to show the wide variety of approaches taken within the field.     

On the prospects of using balanced sex-linked lethals for insect pest control

Summary A new method is suggested for controlling species of insect pests in which the female is heterogametic. This method, involving the use of balanced lethals on the Z chromosome, causes the death of females in the embryonic stage. The method has already been tested in practical sericulture for the production of entirely male progeny of the silkworm. The method requires the construction of two strains of the pest, one carrying two balanced nonallelic but closely located lethals on the Z chromosome, and another with two other pairs of lethals of the same type. In the hybrid progeny from the crosses between the two strains, 100% of the female embryos would die, thus making it possible to release only males without any laborious procedure for sex discrimination. In the progeny from the crosses between the released males and females from the natural population, again 100% of females would die, but the males would survive and when they mated — 62.5% of the female progeny would die. This rate would decline to 34.4 and 16.6% in the sons and grandsons respectively. The repeated release of hybrid males would lead to a progressive increase, with each successive generation, in the percentage of female mortality in the natural population until its total extinction.     

Bactrocera tryoni and closely related pest tephritids--molecular analysis and prospects for transgenic control strategies

Bactrocera tryoni is a serious pest of horticulture in eastern Australia. Here we review molecular data relevant to pest status and development of a transformation system for this species. The development of transformation vectors for non-drosophilid insects has opened the door to the possibility of improving the sterile insect technique (SIT), by genetically engineering factory strains of pest insects to produce male-only broods. Transposition assays indicate that all five of the vectors currently used for transformation in non-drosophilid species have the potential to be useful as transformation vectors in B. tryoni. Evidence of cross mobilization of hobo by an endogenous Homer element emphasises the necessity to understand the endogenous transposons within a species. The sex-specific doublesex and yolk protein genes have been characterized with a view to engineering a female-specific lethal gene or modifying gene expression through RNA interference (RNAi). Data are presented which indicate the potential of RNAi to modify the sex ratio of resultant broods. An understanding of how pest status is determined and maintained is being addressed through the characterization of genes of the circadian clock that enable the fly to adapt to environmental cues. Such an understanding will be useful in the future to the effective delivery of sophisticated pest control measures.     

21世纪我国害虫生物防治研究的进展、问题与展望

害虫生物防治是昆虫学的重要分支学科,进入21世纪以来,随着生命科学和生物技术的发展以及新原理、新方法的不断渗透、交叉与融合,使该分支学科在我国得到了快速发展。本文就近年来我国在天敌昆虫及其利用、昆虫病原微生物及其利用、昆虫信息素及其应用、生物农药及其推广应用、新兴生物技术在害虫生物防治中的应用等方面所取得的主要进展作了简要的回顾与总结;并在分析我国本领域学科发展水平与国际差距的基础上,指出了我国生物防治领域存在的主要问题及几个亟待加强的优先发展领域。     

转基因作物和转基因技术的发展与未来

转基因作物的安全性问题在20世纪末引起全球性的争论,一些人反对转基因植物和转基因技术.本文概述了转基因植物产生的必然性、应用现状、发展趋势、引起争论的主要原因以及必须建立的安全性保障,阐明对转基因作物和技术应采取的科学态度.     

Recent advances in gene therapy and future prospects

Gene therapy, which is treatment of diseases by introducing normal genes into the body, is becoming feasible as the result of advances in genetic engineering. The hematopoietic stem cells have been considered as the appropriate target for gene transfer in many genetic diseases for which allogeneic bone marrow transplantation has been employed successfully. However, there are still many problems to be solved. In particular, expression from retrovirally transduced genes in bone marrow cells has been transient and unstable. On the other hand, an alternative approach to somatic cell gene therapy using nonhematopoietic cells, including skin fibroblasts, endothelial cells, keratinocytes, and lymphocytes, has been shown to possess several advantages. This kind of approach is usually applied to supplementation therapy in not only hereditary disorders but also various acquired diseases, such as cancer or infectious diseases. Recently, clinical application of gene transfer into lymphocytes to treat cancer and immunodeficiency have been approved at NIH (USA). The trial could represent the start of a new era in molecular medicine.     

Recent developments and future directions in computational genomics

Computational genomics is a subfield of computational biology that deals with the analysis of entire genome sequences. Transcending the boundaries of classical sequence analysis, computational genomics exploits the inherent properties of entire genomes by modelling them as systems. We review recent developments in the field, discuss in some detail a number of novel approaches that take into account the genomic context and argue that progress will be made by novel knowledge representation and simulation technologies.     

昆虫几丁质酶及其在害虫防治中的应用

几丁质是昆虫重要的结构性组分,在昆虫生长发育的各个时期都需要一定量的几丁质来维持其代谢平衡.昆虫几丁质酶可以降解昆虫体壁和围食膜中的几丁质,作为一种潜在的生物杀虫剂在害虫防治方面具有广阔的应用前景.随着对昆虫几丁质酶研究的不断深入,目前已克隆到了30余种昆虫几丁质酶,并应用于转基因作物和基因工程微生物中,对害虫具有一定...     

Pheromone trapping models for insect pest control

Pheromones have recently been suggested for use in insect pest control. We formulate a discrete version of a model with virgin females (or female equivalent of pheromone) in traps, and explore conditions under which this mechanism can eradicate the pest. Our model is density independent, thus when eradication is not possible, the pest increases without bound, in reality density dependent effects limit population growth. Successive refinements incorporating various features, show that delayed mating together with monogamy has a strong influence on the outcome, whereas other aspects of mating behaviour are relatively unimportant. All our models show that when males are in excess control is impossible but when some virgins are left unmated each day the outcome depends on the parameters. As the birth rate or survivorship increase, control by this method becomes more difficult.     

Modeling and optimal control of insect pest populations

A distributed-parameter population dynamics model is developed specifically for use with variational optimization techniques. The objective is to develop a modeling/ optimization technique that will permit the development of optimal control policies which minimize combined costs of pest control and economic-yield loss. The model results and optimal control policies are continuous and distributed in time and in insect age. The technique is applied to a study of control by pesticide of the southern green stink bug, Nezara viridula (Linnaeus), a major pest of soybeans in the South. In this case study, the model results agree well with field-survey results, while the optimal control trajectories are reasonable and suggest several avenues for further study.     

耐草甘膦基因克隆和作物转化研究新进展

评述了耐草甘膦基因克隆和作物转化研究的新进展。生物耐草甘膦的机理主要在于1）过量表达EPSPS（磷酸烯醇式丙酮酰莽草酸合成酶）基因;2）EPSPS基因发生突变而对草甘膦的亲和力减弱。或3）解毒酶作用。现已从大肠杆菌、鼠伤寒沙门氏菌、矮牵牛、拟南芥、烟草、胡萝卜等中克隆了aroA等EPSPS基因并进行了分子生物学研究。作物转基因抗草甘膦育种主要通过三条途径;1）转入经过修饰的或突变的耐草甘膦EPSPS基因,2）转入过表达的EPSPS基因;3）导入草甘膦代谢酶基因。     

Gene synthesis technology: recent developments and future prospects

Gene synthesis is a potentially powerful tool in molecular biology that has not yet reached widespread use because of the relatively high cost and labor-intensive nature of the process. This paper reviews some recent technological developments and current research activities of this laboratory which promise to greatly reduce the cost of gene synthesis and to increase the speed and efficiency of the process. We recently developed an improved device for "segmented" synthesis of oligonucleotides, which utilizes porous Teflon wafers containing derivatized controlled pore glass supports to simultaneously synthesize up to 100 different DNA sequences. The stepwise coupling efficiency with the "wafer synthesis device" is as high as that attained with current automated "gene machines" producing 1-4 oligonucleotides at a time, whereas the reagent usage is only 20-50% that of the current DNA synthesizers. At present, we are optimizing the conditions for rapid, efficient assembly of genes on a solid-phase support, wherein ordered, stepwise annealing/washing is performed to segmentally elongate a "starting" oligonucleotide attached to a solid-phase support. We expect that the wafer synthesis device (operated at reduced scale of synthesis), together with solid-phase gene assembly, will permit the synthesis and assembly of an average size gene (1 kb) in one week at a cost of less than $1000. These developments should make gene synthesis a routine and powerful tool in molecular biology.