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Vector-borne infectious diseases are still an important global health problem. Malaria is the most important among them, mainly pediatric, life-threatening disease. Malaria and other vector-borne disorders caused by parasites, bacteria, and viruses have a strong impact on public health and significant economic costs. Most vector-borne diseases could be prevented by vector control, with attention to the ecological and biodiversity conservation aspects. Chemical control with pesticides and insecticides is widely used as a measure of prevention although increasing resistance to insecticides is a serious issue in vector control. Metabolic resistance is the most common mechanism and poses a big challenge. Insect enzyme systems, including monooxygenase CYP P450 enzymes, are employed by vectors mainly to metabolize insecticides thus causing resistance. The discovery and application of natural specific inhibitors/blockers of vector P450 enzymes as synergists for commonly used pesticides will contribute to the "greening" of insecticides. Besides vector CYPs, host CYP enzymes could also be exploited to fight against vector-borne diseases: using mostly their detoxifying properties and involvement in the immune response. Here, we review published research data on P450 enzymes from all players in vector-borne infections, that is, pathogens, vectors, and hosts, regarding the potential role of CYPs in disease. We discuss strategies on how to exploit cytochromes P450 in vector-borne disease control., (© 2023 The Authors. BioFactors published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.)

Insects vastly outnumber us in terms of species and total biomass, and are among the most efficient and voracious consumers of plants on the planet. As a result, to preserve crops, one of the primary tasks in agriculture has always been the need to control and reduce the number of insect pests. The current use of chemical insecticides leads to the accumulation of xenobiotics in ecosystems and a decreased number of species in those ecosystems, including insects. Sustainable development of human society is impossible without useful insects, so the control of insect pests must be effective and selective at the same time. In this article, we show for the first time a natural way to regulate the number of insect pests based on the use of extracellular double-stranded DNA secreted by the plant Pittosporum tobira . Using a principle similar to one found in nature, we show that the topical application of artificially synthesized short antisense oligonucleotide insecticides (olinscides, DNA insecticides) is an effective and selective way to control the insect Coccus hesperidum . Using contact oligonucleotide insecticide Coccus-11 at a concentration of 100 ng/μL on C. hesperidum larvae resulted in a mortality of 95.59 ± 1.63% within 12 days. Green oligonucleotide insecticides, created by nature and later discovered by humans, demonstrate a new method to control insect pests that is beneficial and safe for macromolecular insect pest management.

Numerous studies suggest a cellular origin for the Lymantria dispar multicapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus (LdMNPV) anti-apoptosis genes IAPs, thus opening a possibility to use the fragments of these genes for modulation of host metabolism. We report here the strong insecticidal and metabolic effect of single-stranded antisense DNA fragment from RING (really interesting new gene) domain of gypsy moth LdMNPV IAP-3 gene: specifically, on reduction of biomass (by 35%) and survival of L. dispar caterpillars. The treatment with this DNA fragment leads to a significantly higher mortality rates of female insects (1.7 fold) accompanied with the signs of apoptosis. Additionally, we show increased expression of host IAP-1, caspase-4 and gelsolin genes in eggs laid by survived females treated with RING DNA fragment accompanied with calcium and magnesium imbalance, indicating that the strong stress reactions and metabolic effects are not confined to treated insects but likely led to apoptosis in eggs too. The proposed new approach for insect pest management, which can be considered as advancement of "microbial pesticides", is based on the application of the specific virus DNA, exploiting the knowledge about virus-pest interactions and putting it to the benefit of mankind., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This paper focuses on the DNA insecticides as a novel preparation against gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) based on DNA fragments of the anti-apoptotic gene of its nuclear polyhedrosis virus. It was found that the external application of a solution with two single-stranded DNA fragments from BIR and RING domains of LdMNPV (L.dispar multicapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus) IAP-3 (inhibitor of apoptosis) gene induces a significantly higher mortality of gypsy moth caterpillars in comparison with the application of the control solutions. This effect does not depend on the infection of caterpillars with LdMNPV. The results also show that DNA insecticides based on LdMNPV IAP-3 gene fragments can be selective in action, and at least are not harmful to tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) and black cutworm (Agrotis ipsilon). Part of the gypsy moth genome cloned with the fragments of BIR and RING domains of LdMNPV IAP-3 gene as primers, has an overlap with the corresponding part of the LdMNPV IAP-3 gene and L.dispar IAP-1 mRNA for an inhibitor of apoptosis protein with the high cover by query, allows assuming that we cloned a part of gypsy moth anti-apoptosis gene. This finding gives the grounding that proposed here DNA insecticides might act through the blocking of the mechanisms involved in post transcriptional expression of insect anti-apoptosis genes. The results show the insecticidal potential of the viral genome fragments that can be used to create safe and relatively fast-acting DNA insecticides to control the quantity of gypsy moth populations, important task for forestry and agriculture., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)