A concern with Bt-transgenic insect-resistant plants is their potential to harm non-target organisms. Early studies reported that Cry1Ab-producing Bt maize and purified Cry1Ab harmed larvae of the green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea. Although these effects could not be confirmed in subsequent studies, some authors still refer to them as evidence that Bt maize harms beneficial species. We provide...

Perry et al. [1] developed a model to simulate the field model is based; however, this was not quantified in exposure and adverse effects for three European nontarget Lepidoptera species (Inachis io L., Vanessa atalanta L., and Plutella xylostella L.) to pollen of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) maize MON810 containing lepidopterantargeting Cry1Ab toxin. Perry et al. explicitly modelled the wor...

Rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) is the third most important oil crop in global productions. One of the major limiting factors for oilseed rape production is lepidopteran pests of the Brassicaceae family. Transgenic plants expressing Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) genes are powerful tools in the integrated pest management of crop plants. In the present study, we used a synthetic Bt insecticidal crysta...

Earlier studies have shown that larvae of the green lacewing predator Chrysoperla carnea are negatively affected when preying on lepidopteran larvae that had been fed with transgenic maize expressing the cry1Ab gene from Bacillus thuringiensis. To test whether the observed effects were directly caused by the Cry1Ab toxin, we have developed a bioassay which allows us to feed high concentrations ...

Cry1Ab toxin binding analysis was performed to determine whether resistance in laboratory-selected Ostrinia nubilalis strains is associated with target site alteration. Brush border membrane vesicles were prepared using dissected midguts from late instars of susceptible and resistant strains (Europe-R and RSTT) of O. nubilalis. Immunoblot analysis indicated that three different proteins bound t...

BACKGROUND The potential biofuel plant Jatropha curcas L. is affected by larvae of Archips micaceanus (Walker), a moth of the family Tortricidae. The hybrid Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) δ-endotoxin protein Cry1Ab/1Ac confers resistance to lepidopteran insects in transgenic rice. RESULTS Here, we report the production of a marker-free transgenic line of J. curcas (L10) expressing Cry1Ab/1Ac usi...

Susceptibility to protoxin and toxin forms of Cry1Ab and the binding of (125)I-labeled Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac has been examined in three Plodia interpunctella colonies, one susceptible (688(s)) and two resistant (198(r) and Dpl(r)) to Bacillus thuringiensis. Toxicological studies showed that the 198(r) colony was 11-fold more resistant to Cry1Ab protoxin than to Cry1Ab activated toxin, whereas the D...

Studies to understand the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) resistance mechanism in European corn borer (ECB, Ostrinia nubilalis) suggest that resistance may be due to changes in the midgut-specific Bt toxin receptor. In this study, we identified 10 aminopeptidase-like genes, which have previously been identified as putative Bt toxin receptors in other insects and examined their expression in relatio...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to evaluate potential long-term (110 days) and age-specific effects of feeding genetically modified Bt maize on peripheral immune response in pigs and to determine the digestive fate of the cry1Ab gene and truncated Bt toxin. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Forty day old pigs (n = 40) were fed one of the following treatments: 1) isogenic maize-based d...