Wild-type or mutant toxin (25 μg) was digested for 2 min or 1 h at RT using 8% (w/w) by mass of chymotrypsin to protein (Audtho et al., 1999). Protein was quenched by adding phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride to a final concentration of 2 mM. SDS loading buffer was added to samples and boiled. Proteins were separated by 10% SDS-PAGE, and gel was stained using Coomassie R-250 (Fig. 3). Western Lumacaftor price blot analysis against Cry2A was performed using previously published protocols (Nair et al., 2008). Culex pipiens and Ae. aegypti

eggs were hatched and reared according to specifications previously outlined (Liu & Dean, 2006). Anopheles gambiae G3 eggs were obtained from MR4 [Malaria Research and Reference Reagent Resource Center, now BEI Resources (beiresources.org)]. Anopheles gambiae were reared at 25 °C at 80% RH on a 14 : 10 light/dark photoperiod according to procedures on the MR4 site. Adult mosquitoes were supplied with 10% sucrose and bovine blood. Serial dilutions were performed to prepare toxin crystals. Mosquito larvae were grown to third instar and added to sterile distilled water. Six larvae per well were added to six-well tissue culture plates (Falcon). Water was removed from well and 12 mL of sterile distilled water or toxin was added. Larvae were incubated in mosquito room (see ‘Rearing of mosquitoes’) for 24 h

and mortality ratio was recorded. softtox software was utilized to determine the concentration required to kill buy EPZ5676 50% of the insect population (LC50). An Aviv Circular Dichroism (CD) spectrometer model Erastin 62A DS (Lakewood, NJ) was employed to measure Cry2Ab protoxin (Alzate et al., 2009). Samples diluted in high salt sodium carbonate buffer and detected in a 32-Q-10 quartz cuvette at 25 °C using star stationary 3.0 software. Protoxin data were obtained from averaging six replicate scans (Fig. 4). Multiple sequence alignment of Cry2Aa and Cry2Ab was performed using clustalW2. Cry2Ab model was generated by swiss-model, as described in ‘Materials and methods’.

A characteristic three-domain structure was observed for Cry2Ab protein model. Loop 1 of domain II, located within the block responsible for dipteran specificity, was 10 amino acids in length for Cry2Aa and Cry2Ab (Fig. 1). The loop 2 region of Cry2Ab appeared to be a truncated form (five amino acids) of Cry2Aa loop 2 (c. 14 residues long) and contained an additional β-strand within lepidopteran-specific block. The location of contributing D block residues that confer Cry2Aa mosquitocidal specificity was identified as 307, 309, 311, 314, 318, 324, 334, 336 and 337 (Widner & Whiteley, 1989). Site-directed mutagenesis was employed to exchange Cry2Ab residues with Cry2Aa dipteran-specific D block residues. The following Cry2Ab D block mutants were expressed and quantified; V307S, N309I, F311I, A314T, N318I, V324G, A334S and L336N (Fig. 2). Despite mutagenesis attempts, A337S D block mutant was not successfully cloned.