Abstract: Promising groups of environmetally-safe insecticides consist of analogues of insect hormones, such as juvenile hormone, and antagonists of such hormones. The traditional bioassay approach for screening potential juvenile hormone analogs and antagonists is slow, expensive and inefficient. A recombinant bHLH-PAS-juvenile hormone receptor, isolated from the methoprene-tolerant locus on Drosophila, provides the basis of in vitro and in vivo binding assays that can be used to discover new juvenile hormone-type targeted insecticides. Moreover, the nucleotide sequence of the Drosophila bHLH-PAS/JHR polypeptide provides tools for isolating juvenile hormone receptor genes from other insect species.

Abstract: Promising groups of environmentally-safe insecticides consist of analogues of insect hormones, such as juvenile hormone, and antagonists of such hormones. The traditional bioassay approach for screening potential juvenile hormone analogs and antagonists is slow, expensive and inefficient. A recombinant bHLH-PAS-juvenile hormone receptor, isolated from methoprene-tolerant locus on Drosophila, provides the basis of in vitro and in vivo binding assays that can be used to discover new juvenile hormone-type targeted insecticides. Moreover, the nucleotide sequence of the Drosophila bHLH-PAS/JHR polypeptide provides tools for isolating juvenile hormone receptor genes from other insect species.

Abstract: This invention discloses methods for identifying compounds, variant nuclear proteins and other auxiliary proteins that interfere with the Drosophila ultraspiracle protein ("Usp") and homologs thereof. The methods disclosed involve transformed yeast cells which contain a Usp binding partner, Usp or a homolog thereof which can bind with the Usp binding partner, and a reporter gene which requires a functional Usp--Usp binder partner complex for expression. The transformed yeast cells are incubated in the presence of a test compound to form a test culture and in the absence of a test compound to form a control culture. The expression of the reporter gene is monitored in one example by exposing the test and control cultures to canavanine under conditions in which control cultures exhibit reduced growth and detecting test cultures in which growth is increased relative to growth of control cultures.