Abstract
A new toxic glycoprotein (Zeatoxin) has been isolated from Zea mays and sequenced. The toxin is a single polypeptide chain, with Mr of 10 kDa . Zeatoxin was not digested by a mixture of pepsin and papain or by rnidgut preparations of C. maculatus. A diet of artificial seeds (final concentration, 0.25%) was lethal to 50% of C. maculatus . These results show that Zeatoxin is a new toxic glycoprotein to C. maculatus. A search in the database indicated that the N-terrninal sequence show no homology to any other known protein.