Abstract: Autographa californica M nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) uses two different viral morphotypes to establish and transmit infection within a suscptible lepidopteran larval host. Occlusion-derived virus (ODV), which typically contains multiple nucleocapsids per virion, establishes initial infection in columnar midgut cells, and budded virus (BV) spreads infection thereafter. gp64, the major BV envelope glycoprotein, is essential for productive entry of BV into cells, is absent from ODV and has the unusual property of being expressed early during infection along with viral regulatory genes (as well as late with the other structural genes). Sloughing of infected midgut cells is the physiological mechanism underlying developmental resistance and the key process whereby many hosts avoid fatal infection. Using recombinant viruses, we are testing the hypothesis that early expression of gp64 coupled with the multiple nucleocapsid feature of ODV facilitates the rapid establishment of fatal systemic infection, thereby enabling the virus to avoid the host's sloughing response.
Keywords: Baculovirus, gene expression
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA