The complete genome of the Maruca vitrata nucleopolyhedrovirus (MaviNPV) isolated from the legume pod borer, Maruca vitrata (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), was sequenced. It was found to be 111 953 bp in length, with an overall 39 % G+C content, and contained 126 open reading frames (ORFs) encoding predicted proteins of over 50 aa. The gene content and gene order of MaviNPV have the highest similarity to those of Autographa californica multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) and their shared homologous genes are 100 % collinear. In fact, MaviNPV seems to be a mini-AcMNPV that is native to Taiwan and possesses a smaller genome with fewer auxiliary genes than the AcMNPV type species. Except for one ORF (Mv74), all of the MaviNPV ORFs have homologues in the AcMNPV genome. MaviNPV is the first lepidopteranspecific baculovirus to lack homologues of vfgf and odv-e66. In addition, MaviNPV lacks the baculovirus repeat ORF (bro) gene that corresponds to AcMNPV ORF2. Five homologous regions (hrs) were located within the MaviNPV genome, and these contained a total of 44 imperfect palindromes. Phylogenetic analysis of the whole genome revealed that MaviNPV was separated from the common ancestor of AcMNPV and Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus before these two viral species diverged from each other. Moreover, replication of MaviNPV in several cell lines and an egfp-MaviNPV infection assay revealed that IPLB-LD-652Y cells are only partially permissive to MaviNPV, which supports our conclusion that MaviNPV is a distinct species of the group I lepidopteran NPVs.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The polyhedrin (polh) gene is often used to analyse evolution of baculovirus. In this report, the polh of Antheraea pernyi nucleopolyhedro-virus (AnpeNPV) was cloned and sequenced. The Open reading frame (ORF) of the AnpeNPV consists of 738 nucleotides encoding 245 amino acids with molecular masses of 29 kDa. The deduced amino acids were significant homol-ogy with other baculoviruses, such as Attacus ricini NPV (ArNPV) and Autographa californica NPV (AcNPV). A strongly hydrophilic region was predicted at positions from 30 to 50 of the An-peNPV Polh protein by bioinformatics analysis. Expression of the polh gene of AnpeNPV in E. coli was examined by SDS–PAGE, Western blot and Mass-spectrum analysis. The result showed that the bacterium expression system was suitable for the virus gene expression. It indi-cated that the products of the polh gene ex-pressed in this system can be easier to use for raising antibodies