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Protein & Peptide Letters

Author(s): Maria Ligia Rodrigues Macedo, Mirela Batista Coelho, Maria das Gracas Machado Freire, Olga Lima Tavares Machado, Sergio Marangoni and Jose Carnillo Novello

DOI: 10.2174/092986650704221206162941

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Effect of a toxic protein isolated from zea mays seeds on the development and survival of the cowpea weevil, callosobruchus maculatus

Page: [225 - 231] Pages: 7

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Abstract

A new toxic glycoprotein (Zeatoxin) has been isolated from Zea mays and sequenced. The toxin is a single polypeptide chain, with Mr of 10 kDa . Zeatoxin was not digested by a mixture of pepsin and papain or by rnidgut preparations of C. maculatus. A diet of artificial seeds (final concentration, 0.25%) was lethal to 50% of C. maculatus . These results show that Zeatoxin is a new toxic glycoprotein to C. maculatus. A search in the database indicated that the N-terrninal sequence show no homology to any other known protein.