Construction of a BmNPV polyhedrin-plus Bac-to-Bac baculovirus expression system for application in silkworm, Bombyx mori

Abstract

The baculovirus expression vector system is one of the most powerful and versatile eukaryotic expression systems available. However, as the recombinant baculovirus is usually generated by replacing the foreign gene into the polyhedrin locus, the resulting polyhedrin-negative virus is less infectious to the host larvae when administered via oral ingestion. This limits the large-scale production of the recombinant protein, as the host larvae can only be inoculated through dorsal injection, which is a laborious task. In this paper, we describe a new Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus polyhedrin-plus Bac-to-Bac baculovirus expression system for application in silkworm, B. mori. In this system, the foreign gene and the polyhedrin are co-expressed, and polyhedra are produced as in the wild-type virus, and thus the recombinant baculovirus can be used directly via oral infection. It effectively improves the efficiency of the baculovirus expression system and also widens the application of baculovirus in other fields, such as the development of new biological insecticides.