In vitro production of adaline and coccinelline, two defensive alkaloids from ladybird beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae).

In vitro experiments using [1-(14)C] and [2-(14)C]acetate were devised to study the biosynthesis of the defensive coccinellid alkaloids adaline and coccinelline in Adalia 2-punctata and Coccinella 7-punctata, respectively. The labelled alkaloids obtained in these experiments had a specific activity about ten times higher than that of the samples obtained in feeding experiments. This in vitro assay has enabled us to demonstrate that these two alkaloids are most likely biosynthesised through a fatty acid rather than a polyketide pathway, that glutamine is the preferred source of the nitrogen atom and that alkaloid biosynthesis takes place in the insect fat body.