GROWTH OF Bactrocera cucurbitae AS AFFECTED BY PARTIALLY PURIFIED PROTEASE INHIBITORS FROM Phaseolus vulgaris

Background: The pest status of economically important melon fruit fly, Bactrocera cucurbitae has led to exploration for its control and management strategies to prevent cucurbit crop losses.

Aim: Plants natural defense mechanisms can be deployed as successful control agents that can act directly on the physiological functioning of insect gut.

Methodology and Results: The incorporation of different concentrations (12.5, 25, 50, 100, 200 and 400 µg/mL) of the partially purified kidney bean protease inhibitor into the artificial diet of the second instar (64-72 h old) larvae, had significant inhibitory effects when monitored through bioassays for larval weight gain (p <0.01), food assimilation and mean larval growth rate (p <0.01) as compared to control. Enzymatic assays at different concentrations of partially purified kidney beans protease inhibitor (PI) significantly reduced the activities of digestive enzymes (Trypsin, chymotrypsin, leucine aminopeptidase and elastase) and significantly induced the activities of other enzymes viz. superoxide dismutase, catalase, esterases and phosphatases with increase in treatment interval.