 Hi friends, welcome back to the course on integrated pest management. After having understood the various the pest management components, which are been integrated into the IPM system. In today's class, let us look at the latest and a novel approach, which is been used in the pest management ecosystem, that is biotechnology. You see with the advent of the biotechnology, the agriculture has such what a tremendous boost in terms of the improvising its crop production, improving the produce quality and the pest management area and also managing the resistance in the various insect pests, etcetera and etcetera. So, let us look at how this biotechnology is going to be used in pest management and also the insect resistance programs. What do you mean by a biotechnology? So, biotechnology can be defined as any technology that uses any living organism or a substance of this living organism in order to make or to modify a product for the benefit of a plant or the animal for a specific users. And how this biotechnological approaches have been used in agriculture. See in agriculture, the biotechnological approaches have been made in a various ways, such as like if you look at the genetic engineering program. So, genetic engineering is nothing but where a particular gene of our interest, we are going to use it will be take it out from one living organism and incorporating into the another living organism, where we want the gene to be expressed. And in that way, we have developed several crops. So, which we normally called as genetically engineered crops or genetically modified crops and which not only for the pest management, they have also been used in the various other agricultural field. Then we also employ the another approach called as a molecular markers. So, wherein so we can actually track the genes of our desire and whether they have been rightly incorporated into the living organisms of our desire and whether they have expressed it correctly or not. And in fact, this technique we are using it for developing various varieties and as well as hybrids. And the third approach will be the molecular diagnostics. We use the biotechnology approach like in identifying the various species and the plants and finding a relationship among the species or the living organisms such as finding a phylogenetic relationship etcetera, you know barcoding is also one of the approaches that we can actually make use of it. Then through biotechnology, various vaccines have been developed especially for the farm animals and so with that, the lot of production in the improvement is also been made. And finally, even in the tissue culture also, the biotechnology is a major component which has been actually used. Now, so let us look into the milestones in the history of the biotechnology. Taking the pest management aspect into consideration, I will just pass through some of the important milestones in the biotechnological field. So, in fact, in 1938, so after the discovery of the BT, so the commercialization of the BT has started happening which is first happened in 1938 by producing a commercial product of the BT from France. And after this BT got the clearance from the Environmental Protection Act, then in 1962, BT variety Krzysztocki has become highly popular and this has been actually mainly used for the commercialization. Then in 1990, so the first commercial transgenic crop and virus resistance in Tobacco has been developed by China. And in 1994, so there is genetically modified tomato crop was first came into existence in USA and as well as in France. And after that, in fact in 1995, so they got a first clearance to grow such genetically modified crops in the field, so that is how the field experimentation came into existence. And in fact, 1996 is a major the year where the USA started producing or using this BT cotton in a commercial scale and you know that in 2002, India also adopted the BT for commercial production. And the application of biotechnology, if you look at in agriculture, so I told you apart from the pest management, it has also been used lesser charge in the crop improvement where say for example, the improving the oil quality in the soybean and the canola has been achieved. Then some also been developed as a herbicide resistance such as in cotton, corn, soybean and rice. And I am going to concentrate mainly on this aspect where the biotechnological approach is been employed in managing the various pest in cotton, corn, rice, tomato and potato. There is also the crops which have developed against the virus resistance and to improve the quality of the product itself such as the slow ripening and the softening is been achieved in tomato and the melon crop. And of course, in a breeding program like male sterility is been achieved in canola and corn. So, in the beginning I told you one of the biotechnological approach is for the genetically engineering crops. So, there are several ways in which a gene from one organism can be transferred to the other organism. But here I am going to concentrate and highlight on two important aspect which is most commonly used or the methods which are most commonly used. So, in developing NGMO crops or gentically modified crops. So, with this slide, so I am going to explain those two how the gene transfer in the plant is going to happen a brief introduction of it. In fact, the gene transferring can happen in two ways through a biological approach and through the physical approach. In a biological approach, we are going to use an microorganism which is agrobacterium. So, which acts as a vector and carry the gene of our desire for incorporating into the plant. Whereas, in the gene gun method which is a physical approach where the gene of our desire is going to be bombarded into the plant system. So, to get it embedded into the genomic sequence of the plant. So, in order to achieve both these methods in fact, our first aim is to identify and isolate a desired gene. So, once you actually achieve this, so through the biological method what happens this gene is going to be inserted into the Ti plasmids and this Ti plasmid and along with this bacterium as a vector are going to be incorporated into the plant cell. And this Ti plasmid will moves into the plant cell and inserts this gene or the DNA into the plant chromosome. And once the gene of our desire will gets into the chromosome of the plant genomic sequence, then so the gene will start expressing it. Similarly, through the physical method if you look at it, once you identify the gene, next important thing is that you have to replicate the gene for several hundred thousands of times and these genes are embedded on the gold particles and these particles with a very high frequency will be bombarded into the plant cells where these genes will get embedded into the genomic sequence of the plant and the plant cell will start having this foreign gene into the genomic sequence. And once this is achieved as a third approach, so the method is that will start screening out the cells which are going to express with this foreign gene. So, other cells we are going to eliminate and this gene or the plant cell we are going to select it and this cell will be used in developing a complete transgenic plant, so through the tissue culture or through the various plant breeding sequences. Now in this way, so in fact several GMO crops have been developed, among this in fact if you look at the transgenic crops which are expressing the insecticidal genes, in fact the chrytoxins which is been produced by the bacillus thuringiensis will stand first where all these genes or the genes which are responsible for production of these toxins have been incorporated into the plant system. Apart from this, so there are also the genes which produce the various plant beta motiles such as flavonoids, alkaloids or terpenoids have also been used. Then the enzyme inhibitors, the enzymes plant lectins, then toxins from the predators also like the genes which are producing the toxins in scorpions and spiders are also been used and also the insect hormones. So, all these the genes which produces and which are of use to the pest management system have been used for developing a GMO crop. And we also do it the staking of genes in the sense, so one or more than one gene is going to be incorporated into the plant system, we call it as a gene pyramiding and so through that also we are going to try to achieve a multiple resistance mechanism. Just I would like to highlight the one a very popular and widely adopted the GMO crop that is a BT cotton, so we know that so BT cotton in India was started commercialized in during 2002 and since then, so there is a tremendous increase in the area production and productivity of the cotton in India. And because of the introduction of the BT cotton in India, so there was a tremendous export potential in the cotton has also been achieved. Now this table will indicates the various crops through which the various foreign genes have been incorporated especially the genes from the bachelors thuringiensis and we know the cotton. So, these are the genes which have been incorporated against the various pest mainly against the bullworms and so also the maize, tomato, the rice, potato, tobacco and the brinjal. And in fact this map will explains about the adoption of the biotech crops, so across the globe. And if you look at this, in fact the whole of the North American continent has adopted the biotech crop and majority of the South American countries and parts of the Africa and the entire Australia and majority of the Asian countries like India, China, Pakistan have adopted the biotech crop and in fact, so this has actually boosted the agriculture production to a considerable extent. Now what are the important requirements, so which need to be identified while producing the transonic plant. So, in fact the resistance should be controlled by a single gene, if that is the case then it will be very easy to handle because a simple single gene transfer into the plant we can achieve the what is called as the goal our goal. And the expression of the transfer gene should occur in a desired tissue at an appropriate time which is very important. So, for example the BT cotton we know that we have developed to get the resistance against bullworms and the expression of those toxins at the bull stage in the bulls and also in the flowers at a right stage is quite important. And this also a safer consumption that also need to be done that there should not be any ill effects on the non-target organisms. And another important thing is inheritance of the gene in the successive generation should be very stable especially in terms of varieties if you look at it these genes should get transferred to the next generation and also maintain the same level of expression. Then we also have the genes which are actually derived from the plants such as the protease inhibitors. The genes such as which are going to express the anti-metabolic proteins which will actually interfere with the metabolic activity of the insects have also been transferred. So, also the dietary protease inhibitors which affects the growth and development of the insects especially on the chewing insects been used. Then alpha amylase inhibitors have been used such as transonic tobacco plants expressing this amylase inhibitors. So, which has been derived from the wheat has actually resulted in a very significant mortality of the Lepidopteran larvae which has been experimentally proved. So, also the lectin compounds and some of the important biotechnological methods employed in the crop improvement I told about the genetic engineering method apart from that. So, various methods by which so the genetic engineering can be made. So, two important methods I told one is that is the bacterium based or the vector based as agrobacterium and the gene gun method. There are several other approaches are also there such as the electroporation, micro injection and RNA interface. In fact, RNA interface is nothing but so interfering with the gene of our interest to be get silenced because it is a silencing gene. So, that is also under process though no product has been developed so far, but a lot of research is going into that. Then the genetic engineering for the predators and parasites this is also very important. So, in fact, it is not only to sustain the crop against the past in also to make the natural enemies of these insects to be quite sustainable in the ecosystem and take care of the past we need to look at the genetic engineering or the biotechnological approach in the natural enemies also. In that way the genetic improvement of the predator and parasitoids especially against resistance to the pathogens. So, that the population of these natural enemies should not crash down resistance to pesticides lot of pesticides we use and in fact, the natural enemies are the first which are get affected. So, if we develop the genetically modified the natural enemies to resist against these insecticides then that would be quite useful. Then adaptation to the different environmental condition then the natural enemies to have a higher fecundity and also a good ability for the horse seeking and these are the areas where the biotechnology can be employed. Then how this biotechnology is can be potentially integrated into the integrated pest management. So, you can see that the biotechnological approach is quite effective as there is a low toxicity of protease inhibitors and Bt endotoxins are used against the conventional insecticides. So, you know that how much amount of the insecticides and these Bt were going to dump in if you look take it as a spray or the application, but a simple gene transfer is going to take care of it and all these toxins have gotten very good expression in the different parts of the plant and they also provide protection to those plant parts which are difficult to be treated with the insecticide and we do not have any kind of a drift problem or a ground water contamination like we get in a conventional insecticides. They are safer to the non target species including human beings and they also eliminate the problem of shelf life because they are going to build the plants and they will continuously express and the inbuilt resistance to the various insects is quite minimum. But still we do have certain limitations or the risks which we can say associated with the biotechnological approaches such as the human and animal health is of a concern because a long term study need to be conducted with respect to the toxicity and the food quality and the allergenicity of these GMO crops in the environment. And the risk for agriculture like loss of biodiversity this is one which need to take care and alternation in the nutritional level and the development of resistance is another two important areas to be taken care. And risk for the environment there is a persistence of gene unpredictable gene expression then impact on non target organisms or all needs to be studied and also the risk for the horizontal transfer in the sense like if it is an insect starts developing resistance to a particular gene then you should not immediately start developing the resistance to the other related genes. So these are the some of the important aspects which we need to actually take care. So while we are actually getting into the biotechnological approach. So in this class so we studied about the important biotechnological approaches which can be employed in pest management system. Thank you.