[Reliability of extracellular protease and lipase activities of Beauveria bassiana isolates used as their virulence indices].

The extracellular protease and lipase activities of 17 Beauveria bassiana isolates from different hosts and countries were evaluated for the reliability for the indices of their virulence to the migratory grasshopper, Melanoplus sanguinipes. Virulence assay of each isolate included about 30 10-d-old grasshoppers receiving topical inoculation with the suspension of 10(7) conidia/ml. In the assays of the enzymes, N-succinyl-Ala-Ala-Pro-Phe-p-nitroanilide and p-nitrophenyl palmitate were used as a substrate to measure the activities of protease (3 replicates) and lipase (4 replicates) in the filtrates of gelatin-based and sunflower oil-based liquid cultures of each isolate, respectively. Varying among the isolates assayed, the estimates of LT50's, protease units (PU), and lipase units (LU) were 5.27-16.89 d, 0.47-3.37 x 10(-2) mumol.ml-1.min-1, and 0.00-56.75 mumol.ml-1.h-1, respectively. Regression analysis revealed that PU was significantly (P < 0.01) correlated to the daily cumulative mortality of M. sanguinipes 5-17 d after inoculation and the LT50's whereas LU had little correlation to either the mortalities or the LT50's (P > 0.10). Based on the determination coefficients (r2) from the regression, PU alone interpreted at most 67% of the variation in the mortality 7d after inoculation but less than 50% in most of the days considered and only 38% in LT50's. Thus, the author suggested that PU could be used as virulence index only for early-stage selection of candidate isolates in large quantity and could not entirely replace conventional virulence assay method that remains most reliable.