Four new doramectin congeners with acaricidal and insecticidal activity from Streptomyces avermitilis NEAU1069

Recent trends of modern bacterial insecticides for pest control practice in integrated crop management system

Food security and safety are the major concern in ever expanding human population on the planet earth. Each and every year insect pests cause a serious damage in agricultural field that cost billions of dollars annually to farmers. The loss in term of productivity and high cost of chemical pesticides enhance the production cost. Irrespective use of chemical pesticides (such as Benzene hexachloride, Endosulfan, Aldicarb, and Fenobucarb) in agricultural field raised several types of environmental issues. Furthermore, continuous use of chemical pesticides creates a selective pressure which helps in emerging of resistance pest. These excess chemical pesticide residues also contaminate the environment including the soil and water. Therefore, the biological control of insect pest in the agricultural field gains more importance due to food safety and environment friendly nature. In this regard, bacterial insecticides offer better alternative to chemical pesticides. It not only helps to establish food security through fighting against insect pests but also ensure the food safety. In this review, we have categorized insect pests and the corresponding bacterial insecticides, and critically analyzed the importance and mode of action of bacterial pesticides. We also have summarized the use of biopesticides in integrated pest management system. We have tried to focus the future research area in this field for the upcoming scientists.

Designed biosynthesis of 25-methyl and 25-ethyl ivermectin with enhanced insecticidal activity by domain swap of avermectin polyketide synthase

Background

Avermectin and milbemycin are important 16-membered macrolides that have been widely used as pesticides in agriculture. However, the wide use of these pesticides inevitably causes serious drug resistance, it is therefore imperative to develop new avermectin and milbemycin analogs. The biosynthetic gene clusters of avermectin and milbemycin have been identified and the biosynthetic pathways have been elucidated. Combinatorial biosynthesis by domain swap provides an efficient strategy to generate chemical diversity according to the module polyketide synthase (PKS) assembly line.

Results

The substitution of aveDH2-KR2 located in avermectin biosynthetic gene cluster in the industrial avermectin-producing strain Streptomyces avermitilis NA-108 with the DNA regions milDH2-ER2-KR2 located in milbemycin biosynthetic gene cluster in Streptomyces bingchenggensis led to S. avermitilis AVE-T27, which produced ivermectin B1a with high yield of 3450 ± 65 μg/ml. The subsequent replacement of aveLAT-ACP encoding the loading module of avermectin PKS with milLAT-ACP encoding the loading module of milbemycin PKS led to strain S. avermitilis AVE-H39, which produced two new avermectin derivatives 25-ethyl and 25-methyl ivermectin (1 and 2) with yields of 951 ± 46 and 2093 ± 61 μg/ml, respectively. Compared to commercial insecticide ivermectin, the mixture of 25-methyl and 25-ethyl ivermectin (2:1 = 3:7) exhibited 4.6-fold increase in insecticidal activity against Caenorhabditis elegans. Moreover, the insecticidal activity of the mixture of 25-methyl and 25-ethyl ivermectin was 2.5-fold and 5.7-fold higher than that of milbemycin A3/A4 against C. elegans and the second-instar larva of Mythimna separate, respectively.

Conclusions

Two new avermectin derivatives 25-methyl and 25-ethyl ivermectin were generated by the domain swap of avermectin PKS. The enhanced insecticidal activity of 25-methyl and 25-ethyl ivermectin implied the potential use as insecticide in agriculture. Furthermore, the high yield and genetic stability of the engineered strains S. avermitilis AVE-T27 and AVE-H39 suggested the enormous potential in industrial production of the commercial insecticide ivermectin and 25-methyl/25-ethyl ivermectins, respectively.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12934-015-0337-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Draft Genome Sequence of Insecticidal Streptomyces sp. Strain PCS3-D2, Isolated from Mangrove Soil in Philippines

A draft genome sequence of a Streptomyces sp. isolated from mangrove soil in Cebu, Philippines, is described here. This isolate produced compounds with contact insecticidal activity against important corn pests. The genome contains 7,479,793 bp (in 27 scaffolds), 6,297 predicted genes, and 29 secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters.

Taxonomic and functional diversity of Streptomyces in a forest soil

In this work we report the isolation and the characterization of 79 Streptomyces isolates from a French forest soil. The 16S rRNA gene phylogeny indicated that a great diversity of Streptomyces was present in this soil, with at least nine different and potentially new species. Growth plate assays showed that most Streptomyces lineages exhibit cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic capacities and potentially participate in wood decomposition. Molecular screening for a specific hydrogenase also indicated a widespread potential for atmospheric H2 uptake. Co-culture experiments with representative strains showed antagonistic effects between Streptomyces of the same population and between Streptomyces and various fungi. Interestingly, in certain conditions, growth promotion of some fungi also occurred. We conclude that in forest soil, Streptomyces populations exhibit many important functions involved in different biogeochemical cycles and also influence the structure of soil microbial communities.