A cutworm (Spodoptera litura) as a biomarker for a possible natures poison in sesame

In nature plant chemicals often times are in concentrations far lower than that needed to cause lethality. This is perhaps the reason for the plethora of insect pests recorded worldwide on sesame including new growing regions like Ghana. Sesame has been mentioned as a plant whose seeds contain abundant lignans such as sesamin and sesamol. These compounds are only thought to be biologically active when they act as synergists to pyrethroids. We present data that seem to suggest that, a cultivar each of sesame originating from Asia and Africa cause insect malformations and elicits the induction of high titres of detoxifying enzymes in immature cutworms, Spodoptera litura. Our results suggest that with further extraction and purification we could identify what we suspect to be holding this lepidopteran at the juvenile stage in perpetuity. Concentrated crude extracts of dried leaves of our zeroed cultivars act as a xenobiotic at a concentration that represents approximately forty times the average daily wet leaf intake of 500 mg by larvae of cutworms.