Plant latex: its toxicity and defense against herbivorous insects: a review

Plant latex is a mixture of various chemical constituents which protect plants from herbivorous insects. It contains many chemical substances such as acetogenins, flavonoids, triterpenes alkaloids, lectins, and proteins which show very high insecticidal potential. Latex also contains important other phytochemicals such as glycosides, alkaloids, steroids and resinous substances, tannins and saponins which show diverse biological activities. It also contains enzymatic proteins such as chitinases, proteases, peptidases, plasmins, papain, hevein, lectins and lipases which show enormous insecticidal activity against insects play a critical role in defense against herbivorous insects. Plant show high mortality, inhibit egg hatching and effect post embryonic developmental and survival of insects. Plant latex also showed very high toxicity in mollusks mainly fresh water snail, Lymnaea acuminata and Lymnaea columella. Plant latex possesses many more advantages over synthetic pesticides. It has better lethal potential than synthetic pesticides and has no side effect on environment because it is biodegradable. No doubt its chemical constituents can be used as a successful pesticide if isolated in pure form.