et al. [22] had also indicated that insecticide resistance is tightly
associated with the activities of carboxylesterase.
In this study, we investigated the activities changes of detoxifi-
cation enzymes in the midgut and fatbody of B. mori after phoxim
treatment. We found that both P450 and GST’s activities was significantly
increased, demonstrating their participation in phoxim
metabolism. The esterase activities were actually reduced in the
midgut while increased in the fatbody after phoxim-induction,
implying the existence of mutant aliesterase in the midgut of B.
mori. The B. mori’s detoxification enzyme activities was lower than
the reported bollworms’, indicating that this low activities contributes
to the B. mori’s susceptibility to poisoning.