Vegetative insecticidal protein of Bacillus thuringiensis BLB459 and its efficiency against Lepidoptera.

Bacillus thuringiensis strain BLB459 supernatant showed a promising activity against Lepidopteran pests with extremely damages in the larvae midgut. Investigations of the genes that encode secreted toxin demonstrated that this strain harbored a vip3-type gene named vip3(459). Based on its original nucleotide and amino acid sequences, this gene was cloned into pET-14b vector and overexpressed in Escherichia coli.