Driving Insect-Microbe Interactions by Natural Immune-Modulators: a Novel Tool for Insect Rearing and Control

Israel and California share similar geography, agriculture, and insect pests, and in both countries developing new approaches for suppressing pests while protecting mass-reared insects providing bio-control or pollination services is urgently needed. An attractive novel approach is to modulate insect immune responses and, consequently, their ability to handle microbial infections. Herein, we will develop this concept and target principal components of the insect immune system using environmentally safe, previously approved natural products. This cooperation aims to apply the concept of host-directed therapeutics for modulating the insect immune system and affecting their ability to handle microbial infections. This will be achieved by identifying immuno-suppressing or -protecting molecules from a library of previously approved natural products and validating their activity in a major agricultural pest. Our ultimate goal is to apply this approach to control pests and improve the mass-rearing of beneficial insects. The deliverables of this project are: (1) the first of the kind library of approved natural products, which could be shared with ARS centers and the wider research community; (2) highly effective, broad-spectrum, safe, and commercially viable natural compounds that suppress the immunity of Drosophila and other insect pests; (3) identify new regulatory proteins which can be chemically targeted in order to disrupt the insect immune system; (3) natural products that increase the immunity of pollinators and bio-control insects against insecticidal microbes; (4) method of use patents to thwart insect pests and protect pollinators and bio-control insects; and (5) joint publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals.