Electroporation as an alternative to microinjection of plasmid DNA into bollworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) embryos

Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) is an economically important pest of tomato, cotton, We describe the successful electroporation of 2 beta-glucuronidase reporter gene constructs (pKrG and pBacPAK8-GUS) into H. tea embryos. Fifty percent of the electroporated embryos hatched and of these 75% survived to adulthood. More importantly, we showed that plasmid DNA was delivered to the nucleus of transfected cells. The development of a gene delivery mechanism for H. zea will allow the powerful techniques of molecular genetics to be used in the study of this organism. Hopefully this will result in the development of novel molecular biology based control regimens for this agriculturally important pest.