Entomopathogenic fungi are rich sources of bioactive secondary metabolites that possess insecticidal properties. The present study reported a novel approach for the identification of insecticidal compounds produced by Lecanicillium lecanii 09 and to assess their toxicity against the diamondback moth Plutella xylostella L. The cyclic peptides groups of toxic substances were separated from L. lecanii 09 through submerged liquid state fermentation. The most abundant toxic metabolite, Bassianolide was purified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and its molecular weight and purity were determined by Liquid chromatography - mass spectroscopy (LC-MS), Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and H1 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) respectively. Subsequently, the toxicity of bassianolide was tested against third instar larvae of P. xylostella at three different concentrations (0.01, 0.1, 0.5 mg/ml). The results showed that higher concentration of 0.5 mg/ml had significant maximum mortality at 120 hour post inoculation. Furthermore, we investigated the ligand-target interaction of secondary metabolite binding with target insect immune receptor proteins and predicted the role of toxicity against insect host. This is the first study to report the infection process and the interaction of fungal mediated cyclicdepsipeptide compound (bassianolide) from L. lecanii 09 against the insect host P. xylostella. This novel approach provides a potential impact on biological control using natural toxic compound which acts as good inhibitor on pest insect and prevents toxicity hazards, pollution as well as ecocidal effects killing several beneficial insects.
Keywords: Biological control; Entomopathogenic fungi; Insecticidal activity; Ligand-target interaction; Toxicity.
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