Mixtures of Insect-Pathogenic Viruses in a Single Virion: towards the Development of Custom-Designed Insecticides.

ABSTRACT: Alphabaculoviruses (Baculoviridae) are pathogenic DNA viruses of Lepidoptera that have applications as the basis for biological insecticides and expression vectors in biotechnological processes. These viruses have a characteristic physical structure that facilitates the transmission of groups of genomes. We demonstrate that coinfection of a susceptible insect by two different alphabaculovirus species results in the production of mixed-virus occlusion bodies containing the parental viruses. This occurred between closely related and phylogenetically more distant alphabaculoviruses. Approximately half the virions present in proteinaceous viral occlusion bodies produced following coinfection of insects with a mixture of two alphabaculoviruses contained both viruses, indicating that the viruses

SUBMITTER: Beperet I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7848923 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature