Biological Control of the medfly Ceratitis capitata using molecular biology techniques. Controllo biologico della mosca mediterranea della frutta Ceratitis capitata mediante l'uso di tecniche biomolecolari

We show biochemical and molecular biology studies on the female reproductive accessory gland secretion from Ceratitis capitata wild flies of different origin. The gland secretions from all the populations we analyzed share the same electrophoretic pattern and the antibacterial female-specific peptides ceratotoxins, previously characterized by our research group, are found in all the populations. Southern blot analysis shows that the ceratotoxin genes share the same genomic organization in all the populations. Therefore, we can consider the use of ceratotoxin promoters to control the reproduction of C. capitata natural populations.