Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) is a notorious agricultural pest native to the Old World. Recently, its invasion into South and Central America has become a serious problem in the New World. The rapid detection of invasive pests is essential to eradicate them and prevent establishment. However, an extremely similar species, H. zea (Boddie) distributed in the New World makes identification difficult. Helicoverpa armigera and H. zea have only minor differences in male genitalia to separate them morphologically. Both species are attracted to the same pheromone lure, and it takes considerable time and effort to identify them from bulk samples obtained during trap monitoring. Although several molecular approaches based on PCR have been reported, these methods require expensive equipment and are unsuitable for onsite diagnostics. Here, we developed a rapid and convenient diagnostic method based on the loop-mediated isothermal amplification to distinguish H. armigera from related species: H. zea, H. assulta (Guenée), H. punctigera (Wallengren), and Chloridea virescens (Fabricius). The diagnostic method makes it possible to detect H. armigera within 90 min only using simple equipment. The method also worked with mixed DNA templates containing excess DNA from H. zea at the ratio of 1:999 (H. armigera:H. zea). This method can be an effective tool for onsite diagnostics during monitoring surveys for invasive H. armigera.

中文翻译：

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一种诊断回路介导的等温扩增方法，可将棉铃虫（鳞翅目：夜蛾科）与新世界的其他相关物种区分开。

Helicoverpa armigera（Hübner）是原产于旧世界的臭名昭著的农业害虫。最近，它入侵南美洲和中美洲已成为新世界的严重问题。快速检测入侵性有害生物对于根除它们并防止其定殖至关重要。但是，在新大陆分布的极为相似的H. zea（Boddie）物种使鉴定变得困难。棉铃虫和玉米在男性生殖器上只有很小的差异，可以从形态上将它们分开。两种物种都被吸引到相同的信息素诱饵，并且需要花费大量的时间和精力才能从陷阱监测期间获得的大量样本中识别它们。尽管已经报道了几种基于PCR的分子方法，但是这些方法需要昂贵的设备，不适合现场诊断。在这里，我们开发了一种基于环介导等温扩增区分快速方便的诊断方法棉铃虫从相关品种：美洲棉铃虫，烟青虫（螟），H.茶色（Wallengren）和Chloridea夜蛾（法氏囊）。诊断方法可以检测仅使用简单的设备即可在90分钟内获得棉铃虫。该方法还适用于混合DNA模板，该模板中含有来自H. zea的过量DNA（比率：棉铃虫：H。zea）的比例为1：999 。这种方法可以作为监测入侵棉铃虫的有效手段，用于现场诊断。