Betulin was first discovered in China as the natural active ingredient against peach aphids

Aiming at the major pests of peach industry, a team from ZFRI, CAAS made an important progress in peach aphid control research. They first discovered Betulin, a natural active ingredient against mountain peach aphids, which provided important support for the development of plant-derived green pesticides and the cultivation of varieties plant resistant to peach aphid.

The relevant research results were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, and one national invention patent was authorized (patent No. ZL 2021 1 0679076.1).

Myzus persicae is one of the most destructive phloem feeding pests in the world, with a wide host range and strong virus-transmission ability, causing serious damage to crop. The young leaves of peach after the invasion of Myzus persicae curl to the opposite side or irregularity, hinder the nutrient absorption of leaves, make leaf nutrition deterioration, even fall. The honey dew excreted by aphids on leaves can easily induce mildew, interfere with photosynthesis, and seriously affect crop yield and fruit quality.

The team's previous study found that mountain peach is the most resistant germplasm among the peaches. In this study, they studied the metabolic changes of mountain peach after aphid infection by using F2 generation isolated population of last one. That results showed that Betulin was a key defense metabolite of mountain peach, which had strong aphid killing activity and could protect mountain peach from aphids. Further toxicity tests showed that Betulin was toxic to pests, but not to beneficial insects. In addition, cytochrome P450 gene PpCYP716A1 was found to be a key gene for Betulin synthesis in mountain peach.

Finally, the mechanism of resistance to aphids was pointed out, that is, the content of Betulin was increased by enhancing the expression of PpCYP716A1, which had a toxic effect on aphids and finally resisted the invasion of aphids.

This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program and other projects.