Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 3.
Life cycle of an entomopathogenic fungus in the insect host—the process of
infection.
virulence and effector genes from fungi, oomycetes and bacteria (Gao et
al. 2011), high-throughput insertion mutagenesis (transposon tagging) and
functional screening (Swiegard and Ebbole 2001).
The entomopathogenic fungi that are being utilized as biopesticides
—
M. anisopliae
and
B. bassiana
are both very broad host range fungi.
M.
anisopliae
can infect~ 200 insect species belonging to more than 50 insect
families (Roberts and Humber 1981), acari (Samish and Rehacek 1999) and
is also adapted to life in the root rhizosphere (Hu and St. Leger 2002).
B.
bassiana
has even a wider host range infecting ~700 insect species belonging
to all taxonomic orders of the class insecta (Humber 1991, Butt and Goettel
2000, Devi et al. 2008) and is also reported as an endophyte (Bing and Lewis
1992, Reddy et al. 2009). The wide host range in these generalist fungi is
attributed to their competence to selectively switch on genes suitable for
the surface and internal environment of the available host (Freimoser et al.
2003, Wang et al. 2005, Khan et al. 2007).
