Bt 's and chitinases

Chip Taylor chip at ukans.edu
Sat May 29 12:49:09 EDT 1999


Here is the reference to chitinase activity associated with Bt strains
which I promised to produce in an earlier posting.

Sampson, M. N. and G. w. Gooday 1998. Involvement of chitinases of Bacillus
thuringieensis during pathogenesis in insects. Microbiology 144: 2189-2194.

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4)  Bt toxin does not act as a chitinase!  It must be ingested and works in
the insect gut.

I have seen two references - which I'm unable to lay my hands on at this
moment but I'll try to find them Mond. - that refered to some Bt toxins as
chitinases. This surprised me as I didn't remember that there was any
chitin in the lep gut. But there is - the peritrophic membrane is composed
of chitin, in part, and this is the first barrier that must be breached.


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