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Field-evolved resistance to Bt toxins

Nature Biotechnology volume 26, pages 1074–1076 (2008)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 December 2008

This article has been updated

Bruce E Tabashnik, Aaron J Gassmann, David W Crowder & Yves Carrière reply:

The primary goal of monitoring insect resistance to Bt crops is not to document field failures, but rather to detect resistance in field populations soon enough to enable proactive management of resistance. Thus, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates monitoring to provide “an important early warning sign” of resistance in field populations7. Evolution of resistance is defined as a heritable decrease in a population's susceptibility to a toxin8,9. Susceptibility is typically measured in laboratory bioassays testing the progeny of field-sampled insects for responses to the toxin. Such bioassays document resistance if one or more populations with a history of exposure to the toxin in the field are significantly less susceptible than conspecific populations that have had less exposure9. Because resistant individuals are most likely to be found in the field surviving on Bt crops, sampling insects from Bt crops is an essential component of resistance monitoring.

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Figure 1: Association between field-evolved resistance of H. zea to Bt toxin Cry1Ac and larval survival on Bt cotton leaves containing Cry1Ac.

Change history

  • 05 December 2008

    In the version of this article initially published, the second author’s name was misspelled. The correct spelling is Gassmann. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Competing interests

Although preparation of this article was not supported by organizations that may gain or lose financially through its publication, the authors have received support for other research from Monsanto and Cotton Inc. One of the authors (A.G.) has also received support for other research from Pioneer Hi-Bred, Syngenta and Bayer CropScience. One of the authors (B.T.) is a coauthor of a patent application filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization on engineering modified Bt toxins to counter pest resistance, which is related to published research (Science 318, 1640–1642, 2007).

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Field-evolved resistance to Bt toxins. Nat Biotechnol 26, 1074–1076 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1008-1074

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