Trypsin inhibitors stand for a strategy of insect control and, therefore, the identification and characterization of these inhibitors are very important steps for new forms of pest control to be developed. Trypsin inhibitors act in the primary digestion of proteins and endanger the digestive process wholly, reducing the availability of aminoacids to the insect. The incorporation of trypsin inhibitors in the diet of pest insects is a control form whose efficacy was verified by different authors. In order to observe the efficiency of castor bean leaf extracts in inhibiting trypsin-like enzymes of the coffee leaf miner, an experiment was carried out with the purpose of observing an "in vitro" inhibition phenomenon. The results of the trypsin inhibition tests with normal and boiled with and without β-mercaptoethanol 0.2% (v/v) castor bean leaf extracts and the results of the acetone precipitation process indicated that the inhibitor is a heat-resistant molecule and it is not a protein. This way, the purification process was made by adsorption chromatography with later analysis in mass spectrometer. The reached results indicated that the presence of a trypsin inhibitor of the coffee leaf miner in the castor bean leaf extracts is capable of inhibiting 2.48 + 0.15 UTI, which stands for about 40% of inhibition. Tests performed with bovine trypsin indicated that the castor bean leaf extract have no inhibiting power on this enzyme.
Coffee leaf miner; trypsin inhibition; castor bean
