Isolation, Cloning and Expression of Insecticidal-Protein-Encoding Gene tcdA from Photorhabdus luminescens in Escherichia coli

Entomopathogenic nematodes can provide effective biological control of several important soil insect pests that occur in cryptic habitats (Georgis and Manweiler, 1994; Koppenhofer, 2000). Favorable characteristics include formation of a durable infective stage that can be stored for long periods and applied by conventional methods, and persistence in the environment following application. In addition, these beneficial nematodes are specific to insects, safe to nontarget organisms including humans other vertebrates and plants, they do not pollute the environment (Poinar, 1990; Ehlers, 1991). Accordingly, there is an intense interest to isolate these nematodes from different regions of the world that are climatically adapted and have the potential for biological control of pests in that area.