Insect pathogens, Baculovirus

This paper will focus on the baculoviruses (family Baculoviridae), a group of viruses reported as pathogens of many destructive insect species affecting agricultural and forest production. 1 will emphasize the role of these pathogens as introduced microbial insecticides or "living insecticides" (1). 

The insect baculovirus-cell system has been widely used, mainly for the production of recombinant proteins (Maiorella et al., 1988 Jarvis, 1997). This system has several advantages, including the ability to produce functional recombinant proteins that are immunogenically active, the ability to make post-translation modifications, and the fact that it contains a powerful promoter (polyhedrin), as well as the fact that the virus is not pathogenic to plants and vertebrates (Caron et al., 1990 Nguyen et al., 1993 Godwin et al., 1996). 

Specificity. The specificity and safety of baculoviruses were reviewed by Doller 11) and Groner (25). All tests indicate that the NPVs do not infect man and other vertebrates or, for the most part, other orders of insects. Most NPVs are pathogenic to only a few closely related species of insects. Some NPVs have been demonstrated to infect only a single species of insect. A few broader spectrum NPVs, such as the Autographa califomica NPV, the Anagrapha falcifera NPV, and the Mamestra brassicae NPV 26,12) infect many species of Lepidoptera in the family Noctuidae and several species in other families of Lepidoptera. There are a few reports of NPVs from Lepidoptera infecting insects in other orders. A low level of replication of the Autographa califomica NPV was reported in a mosquito cell line, order Diptera (56). Spodoptera littoralis NPV was reported to cause a lethal... 

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