• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.30 no.12
• /
• pp.1109-1117
• /
• 2020

In order to verify whether Zophobas atratus is an edible insect, the nutrients and harmful substances of Z. atratus larvae reared with an artificial diet (AD) and wheat bran (WB) were compared and analyzed. Based on dry weight, the crude protein content of Z. atratus larvae reared with an AD was 62.4%, 1.4 times higher than that of those reared with WB (45.2%). The crude fat content was 20.5% in the AD group, 2.3 times less than in the WB group (46.3%). The leucine content was 1.4 times higher in the AD group (4.2%) than in the WB group (3.0%). The glutamic acid content of nonessential amino acids was 1.3 times higher in the AD group (7.0%) than in the WB group (5.3%). The oleic acid content was 1.4 times higher in the WB group (37.0%) than in the AD group (26.7%). The potassium content was 1.1 times higher in the AD group (975.9 mg/100 g) than in the WB group (872.9 mg/100 g). According to the results of the toxic substances analysis, the lead and cadmium levels of the WB and AD groups were standard for edible insects. Pathogenic microorganisms, such as E. coli and salmonella, were not detected in either group. According to the results of the present analysis of nutrition and harmful substances, Z. atratus larvae raised on an AD are safe and contain various nutrients. Therefore, such larvae could be useful sources of food and feed.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.1 no.2
• /
• pp.115-122
• /
• 2000

A Bacillus thuringiensis designated NT0423, belonging to B. thuringiensis subsp. aizawai (H 7), was isolated from samples of dust and soil of sericultural farms. B. thuringiensis NT0423 having dualspecificity against Lepidoptera and Diptera produced bipyramidal inclusions consisting of two major polypeptides of approximately 130- and 70-kDa. Proteolytic processing by trypsin and gut juice of Bombyx mori yielded predominant proteins with molecular masses of about 66-kDa. The whole crystal protein of B. thuringiensis NT0423 immunologically was related to that of B. thuringiensis subsp. aizawai. PCR analysis showed that B. thuringiensis NT0423 has at least five crystal protein genes including cryIA(a), cryIA(b), cryIC, cryID and cryIIA, and southern blot was determined the location of each gene on intact and enzyme-digested plasmid DNA fragments. Except for cryIA(a) gene on the high molecular weight plasmid of 165-kb, all of four genes were located on the plasmid of 66-kb. The production of $\beta$-exotoxin from B. thuringiensis NT0423 was identified by the HPLC analysis. In addition, the $\beta$-exotoxin showed its ability to prevent pupation of treated larvae of house flies (Musca domestica) from developing into normal adults.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.759-771
• /
• 2016

We compared the fruit set and the quality of the 'Niitaka' pear (Pyrus pyrifolia Nakai) among flowers pollinated by two bee species (Apis mellifera and Bombus terrestris) and pollinated artificial. The artificial pollination rate was 1.3 to 1.9 times higher than the bee pollination rate. Moreover, the artificially pollinated flowers produced fruit that was 5 to 10% higher in weight, 2 to 3% larger in size, and had a higher fruit shape index (L/D) than fruit pollinated by the bees. On economic analysis, net profit from insect pollinator was 93.5 to 97.1% of net profit from artificial pollination. Therefore, artificial pollination is more efficient than bee pollination in 'Niitaka' pear. However, regarding fruit quality and net profit, these results suggest that bee pollination can be an good alternative to artificial pollination in 'Niitaka' pear.

• Animal cells and systems
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.175-182
• /
• 2007

The lysozyme II gene of cabbage butterfly Artogeia rapae was cloned from fat body of the larvae injected with E. coli and its nucleotide sequence was determined by the RACE-PCR. It has an open reading frame of 414 bp nucleotides corresponding to 138 amino acids including a signal sequence of 18 amino acids. The estimated molecular weight and the isoelectric point of the lysozyme II without the signal peptide were 13,649.38 Da and 9.11, respectively. The A. rapae lysozyme II (ARL II) showed the highest identity (81%) in the amino acid sequence to Manduca sexta lysozyme among other lepidopteran species. The two catalytic residues ($Glu^{32}$ and $Asp^{50}$) and the eight Cys residue motifs, which are highly conserved among other c-type lysozymes in invertebrates and vertebrates, are also completely conserved. A phylogenetic analysis based on amino acid sequences indicated that the ARL II was more closely related to M. sexta, Hyphantria cunea, Heliothis virescens, and Trichoplusia ni lysozymes. The ARL II gene was expressed in Spodoptera frugiperda 21 insect cells and the recombinant ARL II (rARL II) was purified from cell-conditioned media by cation exchange column chromatography and reverse phase FPLC. The purified rARL II was able to form a clear zone in lysoplate assay against Micrococcus luteus. The lytic activity was estimated to be 511.41 U/mg, 1.53 times higher than that of the chicken lysozyme. The optimum temperature for the lytic activity of the rARL II was $50^{\circ}C$, the temperature dependency of the absolute lytic activity of rARL II was higher than that of the chicken lysozyme at low temperatures under $65^{\circ}C$.

• Journal of Conservation Science
• /
• v.36 no.4
• /
• pp.255-263
• /
• 2020

Paulownia coreana has various advantages as a convenient workability, aesthetic outlook, beautiful patterns, low weight and high strength, and its permeability. P. coreana has been widely used for storage but there are no empirical researches proving its functionality in a field of conservation science until now. In this study, the seasonal and daily temperature and relative humidity control, and microbe and insect repellent activity were evaluated under the controlled and uncontrolled circumstances from 2015 to 2016. The results showed to be mainly excellent in relative humidity control and the buffering effect was good to adjust the average daily relative humidity range from the outside. With respect to the antimicrobial properties of P. coreana, we observed that its water-soluble extract produced visible zones of inhibition against five bacteria. However, it was difficult to predict the antimicrobial and/or insecticidal properties.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.15 no.11
• /
• pp.3991-4010
• /
• 2021

The Question Similarity Measurement of Chinese Crop Diseases and Insect Pests (QSM-CCD&IP) aims to judge the user's tendency to ask questions regarding input problems. The measurement is the basis of the Agricultural Knowledge Question and Answering (Q & A) system, information retrieval, and other tasks. However, the corpus and measurement methods available in this field have some deficiencies. In addition, error propagation may occur when the word boundary features and local context information are ignored when the general method embeds sentences. Hence, these factors make the task challenging. To solve the above problems and tackle the Question Similarity Measurement task in this work, a corpus on Chinese crop diseases and insect pests(CCDIP), which contains 13 categories, was established. Then, taking the CCDIP as the research object, this study proposes a Chinese agricultural text similarity matching model, namely, the AgrCQS. This model is based on mixed information extraction. Specifically, the hybrid embedding layer can enrich character information and improve the recognition ability of the model on the word boundary. The multi-scale local information can be extracted by multi-core convolutional neural network based on multi-weight (MM-CNN). The self-attention mechanism can enhance the fusion ability of the model on global information. In this research, the performance of the AgrCQS on the CCDIP is verified, and three benchmark datasets, namely, AFQMC, LCQMC, and BQ, are used. The accuracy rates are 93.92%, 74.42%, 86.35%, and 83.05%, respectively, which are higher than that of baseline systems without using any external knowledge. Additionally, the proposed method module can be extracted separately and applied to other models, thus providing reference for related research.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.45 no.2
• /
• pp.93-98
• /
• 2022

To assess the feasibility of silk sericin for non-textile application, the storage stability and biological safety of sericin were examined. It was extracted at 37℃, 70℃, 100℃, and 121℃ for 1, 3, and 5 h to elucidate the effect of extraction condition on the stability and safety of silk sericin. The solubility was increased till approximately 26% with extraction temperature of 121℃ for 1 h. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) showed that the molecular weight distribution depended on the extraction conditions. Extracted sericin displayed typical UV absorption bands upon spectrometric analysis. To examine the reproducibility of its obtained conformation, sericin was extracted thrice and its circular dichroism (CD) spectra was measured each time. Most CD spectra showed reproducibility regardless of temperature and time except under 100℃ extraction condition. The diversity of CD spectrum showed gradual reduction and was finally coincident with extraction time from 1 to 5 h. Notably, sericin has a negative peak of approximately 200 nm attributed to random coil conformation, regardless of extraction condition. However, at the 100℃ extraction condition, sericin showed both bands to be negative bands of approximately 200 and 220 nm, respectively. Sericin was centrifuged to determine the stability of storage conditions. The sericin extracted at 100℃ and 121℃ for 1 h was found to form gel rapidly within 1 h, but at 121℃ condition, the gel fraction was approximately 20% within 1 h which retained its phase regardless of storage time. The gel fraction of sericin extracted at 100℃ for 5 h increased with time, however at the 121℃ for 5 h condition, the gel fraction was measured to be less than 10% regardless of increase in storage time. Petriflim^TM AC plates test showed that sericin was safe from aerobic bacteria activity by extraction under high temperature.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• v.62 no.5
• /
• pp.741-752
• /
• 2020

Herein, the in vitro protein digestibility of lyophilized Protaetia brevitarsis larvae flour with and without defatting using 70% ethanol was compared with beef loin. Proximate analysis showed that the defatted larvae contained the highest protein content (p < 0.05). The viable counts of total aerobic bacteria, Escherichia coli, and coliform bacteria decreased significantly after defatting the larval samples with 70% ethanol (p < 0.05). Measurement of α-amino group content and sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) revealed higher amounts of low molecular weight proteins in the larvae compared to beef loin (p < 0.05). After in vitro digestion, the degree of protein hydrolysis of the digesta was higher for both larvae samples compared to beef loin (p < 0.05). No change was observed in the in vitro larval protein digestibility after defatting. These results highlight the excellent protein digestibility of P. brevitarsis larvae with high protein content. Defatting insect flour with 70% ethanol could enhance microbial safety while maintaining excellent protein digestibility.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.28-32
• /
• 2009

We describe here the cloning and characterization of a cDNA encoding the glutathione S-transferase (GST) from the bumblebee Bombus ignitus. The Delta-class B. ignitus GST (BiGSTD) gene spans 1668 bp and consists of four introns and five exons that encode 216 amino acid residues with a calculated molecular weight of approximately 24561 Da and a pI of 8.03. The N-terminal domain of BiGSTD has a conserved Ser residue, as well as conserved Lys, Pro, Glu, Ser and Tyr residues that are involved in the GSH-binding site of GST. The BiGSTD showed 60% protein sequence identity to the Bombyx mori GSTT1, 58% to Musca domestica GST, 57% to Drosophila melanogaster GST, and 55% to Anopheles gambiae GST1. BiGSTD was close to the insect-specific Delta class of GSTs in a phylogenetic tree. Northern blot analysis showed that BiGSTD is highly expressed in the fat body and midgut, and less so in the muscles of B. ignitus worker bees.

• Journal of Life Science
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.483-489
• /
• 2002

We investigated the biochemical properties of insect defensin expressed and secreted from Saccharomyces corevisiae. The defensin showed extremely high resistance to boiling for up to 30 min and to pH values tested from 2.0 to 12.0. The treatment of defensin with various proteases abolished antibacterial activity. However, amylases, cellulase, lipase and catalase had no effect on the activity. The defensin was purified to homogeneity through ammonium sulfate concentration of culture supernatant, SP-Sepharose column chromatography and RP-HPLC. Tricin-SDS-PAGE analysis revealed that the molecular weight of the defensin was about 4.0 kDa. The antibacterial activity of the purified defensin was verified by renaturation of stained gel and gel pouring assay using Micrococcus luteus as a test organism.