The toxic and lethal effects of the trehalase inhibitor trehazolin in locusts are caused by hypoglycaemia.

The main blood sugar of locusts is trehalose, which is hydrolysed to two glucose units by trehalase. Homogenates of locust flight muscles are rich in trehalase activity, which is bound to membranes. A minor fraction of trehalase is in an overt form while the remainder is latent, i.e. active only after impairing membrane integrity. Trehazolin, an antibiotic pseudosaccharide, inhibits locust flight muscle trehalase with apparent K(i)- and EC(50) values of 10(-8) mol l(-1) and 10(-7) mol l(-1), respectively. Trehazolin is insecticidal: 50 micro g injected into locusts completely and selectively blocked the overt form of muscle trehalase (with little effect on latent activity) and killed 50% of the insects within 24 h. Here, it is demonstrated for the first time that trehazolin causes dramatic hypoglycaemia. Injection of 10 micro g trehazolin caused glucose levels to fall by over 90% in 24 h, from 2.8 mmol l(-1) to 0.23 mmol l(-1), while trehalose increased from 61 mmol l(-1) to 111 mmol l(-1). Feeding glucose to the locusts fully neutralized the effects of a potentially lethal dose of trehazolin. This indicates that hypertrehalosaemia is not acutely toxic, whereas lack of glucose causes organ failure (presumably of the nervous system), and that sufficient haemolymph glucose can only be generated from trehalose by trehalase. The results also suggest that overt flight muscle trehalase is located in the plasma membrane with the active site accessible to the haemolymph. Trehalase inhibitors are valuable tools for studying the molecular physiology of trehalase function and sugar metabolism in insects.