Electrical signalling on Bt and non-Bt cotton plants under stress by Aphis gossypii

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 8;16(4):e0249699. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249699. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Plants have developed various mechanisms to respond specifically to each biotrophic attack. It has been shown that the electrical signals emitted by plants are associated with herbivory stress responses and can lead to the activation of multiple defences. Bt cotton is a genetically modified pest-resistant plant that produces an insecticide from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) to control Lepidopteran species. Surprisingly, there is no study-yet, that characterizes the signalling mechanisms in transgenic cotton plants attacked by non-target insects, such as aphids. In this study, we characterized the production of electrical signals on Bt and non-Bt cotton plants infested with Aphis gossypii and, in addition, we characterized the dispersal behaviour of aphids to correlate this behaviour to plant signalling responses. Electrical signalling of the plants was recorded with an extracellular measurement technique. Impressively, our results showed that both Bt and non-Bt cotton varieties, when attacked by A. gossypii, emitted potential variation-type electrical signals and clearly showed the presence of distinct responses regarding their perception and the behaviour of aphids, with evidence of delay, in terms of signal amount, and almost twice the amount of Cry1F protein was observed on Bt cotton plants at the highest density of insects/plant. We present in our article some hypotheses that are based on plant physiology and insect behaviour to explain the responses found on Bt cotton plants under aphid stress.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Aphids / microbiology*
  • Bacillus thuringiensis / metabolism*
  • Gossypium / genetics
  • Gossypium / microbiology*
  • Gossypium / parasitology*
  • Herbivory / physiology
  • Insecta / microbiology
  • Insecticides / metabolism
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / genetics
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / microbiology
  • Plants, Genetically Modified / parasitology
  • Signal Transduction / genetics
  • Stress, Physiological / genetics
  • Stress, Physiological / physiology*

Substances

  • Insecticides

Grants and funding

This study was funded by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brazil (CAPES)— Finance Code 001 to JP (CAPES process number: 88882.328551/2019–01), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo in the form of Ph.D. and postdoctorate scholarships for JBM (FAPESP process: 2018/20435–5, 2017/05953–7, 2015/20380–8) and for financing Projects 2014/16609–7 347 and 2017/21097–3 (FAPESP process), and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) to WACG and FSR. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.