Kent Shelby
USDA Agricultural Research Service, Entomology, Department Member
- Describe yourself in a few short sentencesedit
Research Interests: Zoology, real time PCR, Expressed Sequence Tags, Stress response, Animals, and 16 moreInvertebrate Pathology, Real Time, Enzyme, Hemocytes, Larva, Moths, Immune function, Physiological Stress Markers, Heliothis Virescens, Selenoproteins, Large Scale, Protein Binding, Cell Surface Markers, Bacterial Infection, cDNA library, and HELICOVERPA-ZEA
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Heliothis virescens larval plasma contains high levels of an antiviral activity against the budded form of the Helicoverpa zea single nucleopolyhedrovirus (HzSNPV) in vitro. Preliminary results indicated that phenoloxidase is primarily... more
Heliothis virescens larval plasma contains high levels of an antiviral activity against the budded form of the Helicoverpa zea single nucleopolyhedrovirus (HzSNPV) in vitro. Preliminary results indicated that phenoloxidase is primarily responsible for this virucidal effect. However it is known that other enzymes that generate antimicrobial reactive oxygen intermediates and reactive nitrogen intermediates are present in hemolymph that could contribute to the observed virucidal activity. To elucidate the contributions of phenoloxidase and other candidate activities to plasma innate immune response against baculovirus infection specific metabolic inhibitors were used. In vitro the general inhibitors of melanization (N-acetyl cysteine, ascorbate and glutathione), and specific inhibitors of phenoloxidase (phenylthiourea and Kojic acid), completely blocked virucidal activity up to the level seen in controls. Addition of the enzyme superoxide dismutase to plasma did not affect virucidal activity; however addition of catalase had an inhibitory effect. Inhibitors of nitric oxide synthase activity did not affect virucidal activity. Our results confirm that phenoloxidase is the predominate activity in larval plasma accounting for inactivation of Hz SNPV in vitro, and that phenoloxidase-dependent H2O2 production may contribute to this virucidal activity.