So the short-term shutoff in response to PA
is that it protects the insects from over ingestion of them.
Now, they're toxic, and these insects
are adapted to deal with them.
But we thought that it could be that they get too much of it,
and too much of a good thing can also be toxic to them.
In fact, we've reared them on diet with these PAs in,
and it's not true.
They can take any amount.
So this is not an issue.
But it does ensure that the insects retain
their normal food-mixing habit, and that's
needed to prevent over-ingestion of all the other toxins.
Now, even these PA plants--
they have the chemical they need,
but they've got other stuff in them too which is bad.
So here's your problem.
You've got to get the PAs, but you
don't want to eat too much of that plant,
because there's all kinds of other bad stuff there.
And so, what we believe is that shutting off the PA cell
means that they stop eating that PA plant for a while.
Not because of the PAs, but because
of all this other stuff in there.