Glycogen: its importance in the infectivity of aged juveniles of Steinernema carpocapsae.

Infective juveniles (IJs) of Steinernema carpocapsae (All) are able to remain relatively highly infective even when they have almost exhausted their neutral lipid reserves. This is not seen in other steinernematid species so we proposed that carbohydrate may be important for infectivity in aging IJs of S. carpocapsae. The present study investigated glycogen utilization in IJs of 4 entomopathogenic nematodes, S. carpocapsae, S. riobravis (Biosys 355), S. feltiae (UK76) and S. glaseri (NC), stored in distilled water at 25 degrees C. The 4 species had appreciable amounts of glycogen; from ca. 8% dry weight in S. riobravis to ca. 18% in S. glaseri. Infective juveniles of S. carpocapsae and S. riobravis survived for 120-135 days and utilized ca. 90% of their glycogen reserve at an almost constant rate during a 112-day storage period. Steinernema feltiae and S. glaseri lived for much longer (> 450 days) and during a 250-day storage period their glycogen content decreased by 27 and 40%, respectively. In contrast to the other 3 species, the rate of lipid decline preceded that of glycogen in S. carpocapsae. The rate of glycogen decline in S. carpocapsae IJs incubated with the glycolytic inhibitor, iodoacetamide (10(-4) M) was significantly reduced (P < 0.05) compared with untreated nematodes, and the infectivity of inhibitor-treated aged (> 80 days) IJs was reduced compared with controls. Incubating aged (80-day) IJs of S. carpocapsae (mean neutral lipid content ca. 10% of initial level) with 10(-4) M iodoacetamide for 24 h significantly reduced (P < 0.05) their infectivity compared with freshly harvested inhibitor-treated IJs and untreated controls. Following an 11-day recovery period, the infectivity of inhibitor-treated aged IJs recovered significantly (P < 0.05). The evidence suggests that glycogen is an important source of energy for maintaining infectivity in aged IJs of S. carpocapsae.