National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS)
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PRINT ISSN : 2319-7692
Online ISSN : 2319-7706 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcmas@gmail.com / submit@ijcmas.com Editor-in-chief: Dr.M.Prakash Index Copernicus ICV 2018: 95.39 NAAS RATING 2020: 5.38 |
Ecdysteroids are hormones with an important role in the molting, reproduction and immunological defense of arthropods. Ecdysone Receptor (EcR) is a protein that belongs to the superfamily of nuclear receptors, widely studied for pesticide discovery. Currently, several non-steroidal molecules, belonging to the chemical group of diacilhydrazines (DAH), are commercially available for pest control. Such molecules are specific for lepidopteran or coleopteran pests. Hemipterans are important pests in most crops and many cases of pesticide resistance are reported. There is no pesticides targeting hemipteran EcR and such strategy would be interesting in the point of view of controlling sucker insects. In this context, this work aimed to explore hemipterans EcR for in silico study for rational pesticide design. Amino acid residues of binding site are mostly conserved among different insect orders, which explains the unspecificity of ecdysteroids, such as 20-hydroxyecdysone or Ponasterone-A. Hemipteran EcR presents several cavities around the binding pocket. Those cavities can be explored as a target for allosteric modulators/inhibitors. Further, conserved amino acids in hemipteran EcR binding pocket are interesting targets for pharmacophore-based pesticide discovery. Analysis of specific characteristics of hemipteran EcR is the first step for novel and selective pesticide discovery.
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