The mushroom bodies are key features of the brain circuitry for insect associative learning, especially when evoked by olfactory cues. Mushroom bodies are also notable for the close-packed parallel architecture of their many intrinsic neuronal elements, known as Kenyon cells. Here, we report that Kenyon cells of adult Drosophila exhibit synchronous oscillation of intracellular calcium concentra...

INTRODUCTION: DDT is an organochlorine insecticide used mainly to control mosquito-borne malaria; use on crops has generally been replaced by less persistent insecticides (79). It was extensively used during the Second World War among Allied troops and certain civilian populations to control insect typhus and malaria vectors, and was then extensively used as an agricultural insecticide after 19...

Background Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Cry toxins have specific toxicity to susceptible insects. They are being used in transgenic plants or spray to control insect pests in agriculture [1, 2, 3]. Cry3A toxins are used extensively for biological control of coleopteran larvae [4, 5]. A Bt886-Cry3Aa gene that exhibited a high activity against Coleoptera insects isolated Our laboratory. Insect bio...

A recombinant baculovirus containing the complete sequence for the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) BMRF1 gene product, the EBV DNA polymerase accessory protein, under the control of the polyhedrin promoter was constructed. Insect cells infected with the recombinant virus produced two phosphoproteins of 52 and 50 kDa and one unphosphorylated protein of 48 kDa, recognized by anti-BMRF1 protein-specific ...

Baculovirus occlusion-derived virions (ODVs) are released from occlusion bodies by the alkaline environment of the insect midgut. The ODV envelope protein P74 is required for oral infectivity. A soluble form of the Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus P74 protein, P74sol, was engineered as part of a chimeric protein with jellyfish green fluorescent protein (GFP). P74sol-GFP was ...

During the molecular cloning of the human dsRNA activated-p68 kinase (PKR), polyclonal antibodies against PKR selected, in addition to cDNAs corresponding to PKR, another cDNA presenting only slight homology with PKR cDNA. This cDNA recognized an mRNA species of 2 kilobases induced by both alpha- and gamma-interferons. Its transcription did not require protein synthesis. On further library scre...