Abstract
The usefulness of host range expanded recombinant viruses for economical viral insecticide and expression vector system has been studied. Host range expanded recombinant viruses, RecS-B6 and RecB-8, constructed by cotransfection of Bombyx mori nuclear polyhedrosis virus (BmNPV) and Autographa californica NPV (AcNPV), and a host range expanded AcNPV recombinant, Ac-BH, constructed by substitution of the 0.6Kb fragment of the BmNPV helicase gene were compared. The restriction enzyme digestion patterns showed that RecS-B6 and RecB-8 had expanded host ranges by genomic recombination and were more similar to genome of AcNPV than that of BmNPV. SDS-PAGE and PCR analysis showed that the polyhedrin gene of RecS-B6 and RecB-8 was derived from BmNPV genomic DNA. The morphology of polyhedra of recombinant viruses showed a slight difference between the two host cells, Sf and BmN cells, indicating that the morphology of polyhedra was influenced by host cells. The bioassay data for insect larvae showed that Ac-BH, compared to wild type viruses, had superior pathogenicity against Bombyx mori larvae but inferior pathogenicity against Spodoptera exigua larvae. Although the pathogenicity was lower than that of wild type viruses in both larvae, RecS-B6 showed the pathogenicity in both larvae. These results suggested that Ac-BH was a less useful economical insecticide than random genomic recombinant virus RecS-B6.