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Georgia Veterinary Scholars Program

GVSP Summer 2009 Scholars

Georgia Veterinary Scholar	Faculty Mentor
Debbie Charles Tuskegee University Class of 2011	Dr. Clifton Baile Department of Animal and Dairy Science UGA College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences

Biocontrol of the litter beetle, Alphitobius diaperinus, to prevent the spread of Salmonella in poultry houses
* Clifton A. Baile, Mohd Amir F. Abdullah, Youngjin Park, Milton D. Taylor, Debbie Charles
The litter beetle, Alphitobius diaperinus, is a serious pest in modern poultry production houses. It carries over from one production cycle to another even when pyrethroid insecticides are applied between crop cycles. It also serves as a vector for several poultry pathogens such as Marek’s disease, New Castle disease, Escherichia coli, and more specifically Salmonella typhimurium. The leading biorational pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a spore forming soil bacterium that produces parasporal crystal inclusion bodies (Cry toxins) with insecticidal activity during the stationary phase of its growth cycle, is a prime candidate for controlling this pest. BtB is a fragment of the insect midgut cadherin protein containing the three cadherin repeats closest to the gut membrane that has been shown to significantly enhance the activity of Bt Cry toxins.  BtB7 is active with coleopteran-active toxins and comes from the western corn rootworm cadherin.  When susceptible coleopteran larvae ingest the Cry 3Aa toxin along with BtB7 (CR8-10 inclusion bodies), they have increased susceptibility to the toxin. Previously, it was shown that the terminal lepidopteran cadherin fragment (CR10-12) from Manduca sexta was more stable to insect gut proteases and more active as a Bt enhancer when trypsin cleavage sites were removed. Consequently, BtB7 was similarly modified by removing some of the trypsin cleavage sites to create BtB8. We hypothesize that BtB8 will be more stable and enhance Cry3Aa to a greater extent than the unmodified sequence of BtB7.