ABSTRACT
Flour beetles attack stored grain products such as flour, cereals, meal, dried pet food, dried flowers and even dried museum specimens and other foods in the house. Stored-product insects cause tremendous losses by lowering weight, germination rate, nutritional value and grain grade. These beetles are of the most important pests of stored products in the home and grocery stores. The adult female may live for as long as two years, depositing 300 to 400 eggs. The life cycle requires one to four months when temperatures are favorable. Several methods could be used to control this insect including synthetic insecticides, biological control, physical control and transgenic plant carrying gene of interest. Chemical controls are discouraged due to pesticide residue in the commodities and resistance in insects. The study of insect digestive enzymes seems to make sense in the realization that the gut is the major interface between the insect and its environment. Hence, an understanding of digestive enzyme function is essential when developing methods of insect control such as the use of enzyme inhibitors and transgenic plants to control insect pests. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to get a good understanding from enzyme composition of different larval stages of the insect and finally characterize amylase which is the key enzyme in digestive system of this insect. For alpha-amylase study whole larvae were homogenized in 0.02 M phosphate buffer at pH 7.2. The homogenates were separately transferred to a 1.5 ml of centrifuge tubes and centrifuged at 15000xg for 20 min at 4degrees C. The supernatants were used as enzyme source in assays. alpha-Amylase activity was assayed by the dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) procedure using 1% soluble starch (Merck) as substrate. The results show that enzyme activity (OD) in the first, second, third and fourth larval stages were 0.5, 1.15, 1.35 and 1.362, respectively. There are significant differences in amylase activity in different larval stages; however, there are no significant differences in the enzyme activity of two last larval stages. Wheat grain is a major source of starch and insect that feed on the wheat grain or flour made from wheat rely heavily on their amylase for starch hydrolyze and this could be the main reason that larval stages even first larval instar has such a high amount of alpha-amylase.
