Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2021) 87 (3 - e02180-20)

Inés Beperet, Oihane Simón, Miguel López-Ferber, Jan van Lent, Trevor Williams and Primitivo Caballero (2021)
Mixtures of insect-pathogenic viruses in a single virion: towards the development of custom-designed insecticides
Applied and Environmental Microbiology 87 (3 - e02180-20)
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 coinfected and replicated in a single cell and were coenveloped within the same virion. This observation was confirmed by endpoint dilution assay. Moreover, both viruses persisted in the mixed-virus population by coinfection of insects during several rounds of insect-to-insect transmission. Coinfection by viruses that differed in genome size had unexpected results on the length of viral nucleocapsids, which differed from those of both parental viruses. These results have unique implications for the development of alphabaculoviruses as biological control agents of insect pests.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website
Database assignments for author(s): Oihane Simón, Jan W.M. van Lent, Trevor Williams, Primitivo Caballero

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
biocontrol - natural enemies
Research topic(s) for beneficials or antagonists:
general biology - morphology - evolution

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
Alphabaculovirus spexiguae (entomopathogen)
Alphabaculovirus spofrugiperdae (entomopathogen)