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No refuge for insect pests

Nature Biotechnology volume 28, pages 1273–1275 (2010)Cite this article

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The sterile insect technique offers an alternative to the refuge strategy for managing resistance to Bt toxins.

Transgenic cotton and corn expressing insecticidal proteins from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have been cultivated on >200 million ha worldwide over the past 15 years1, reducing the use of chemical insecticides and increasing farmers' profits2,3. But the environmental and economic advantages of these crops are threatened by the tendency of insect pests to develop resistance to Bt toxins. A report in this issue by Tabashnik et al.4 demonstrates a new approach for suppressing the emergence of resistance. Field trials in Arizona over four growing seasons show that releasing sterile male pink bollworm moths, which can mate with resistant females, succeeded in almost completely eradicating a major cotton pest. The study establishes that sterile insect release is a viable alternative to the so-called refuge strategy for preventing the emergence of resistance and can enhance the sustainability of Bt crops.

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Figure 1: Use of the SIT together with transgenic cotton expressing the Bt transgene suppresses the growth of the pink bollworm population and facilitates management of resistance to Bt toxin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kongming Wu is at the State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.,

    Kongming Wu

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  1. Kongming Wu
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Correspondence to Kongming Wu.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Wu, K. No refuge for insect pests. Nat Biotechnol 28, 1273–1275 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.1718

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