INSECTICIDAL GENE AND PEPTIDE

摘要

The present invention relates to FMRF amide type peptides and their non-amidated precursors, to recombinant nucleic acids encoding for such peptides, to the use of these nucleic acids, in forms substantially isolated from other nucleic acid or when incorporated into vectors, to transform organisms in order to render them capable of producing these peptides, to the use of such peptides, nucleic acid and vectors as pesticidal agents, eg. insecticidal, acaricidal and helminthecidal agents and to compositions comprising one or more of these. A peptide or salt thereof comprising an amino acid sequence Pro-Pro-(Xaa<1>)n-Phe-Xaa<2>-Arg-Xaa<3> or a conservatively substituted analogue thereof, wherein the N terminal of said peptide may be free amino or protected amino and the C-terminal of said peptide, which is the C-terminal -Xaa<3> of the above sequence, may consist of that residue with a free carboxylic acid group or with an amidated carboxyl of the formula CONR<1>R<2> wherein R<1> and R<2> are independently selected form hydrogen, alkyl, alkenyl, hydroxyalkyl, alkoxyalkyl and aminoalkyl or together with the nitrogen to which they are attached form a C3-8 heterocyclic ring; wherein Xaa<1> is any amino acid, which is independently selected at each repeat n, and n is an integer from 0 to 10 and Xaa<2> is Met, Val, Ile, Leu, Nle or Phe or a conservatively substituted analogue thereof and Xaa<3> is Phe, Asp or Glu, provided that when the peptide is Ile-Pro-Pro-Gln-Phe-Met-Arg-Phe it is not combined with skin of the frog Hylambates (Kassina maculata) is specifically claimed as are nucleic acids encoding therefor.