Abstrato

CHANGE IN THE VIRULENCE OF THE LYMANTRIA DISPAR NUCLEOPOLYHEDROVIRUS DURING PASSAGE IN THE INSECT HOST

Ilyinykh AV, Baturina OA, Ilyinykh FA, Podgwaite JD, Polenogova OV, Belousova IA, Martemyanov VV, Kabilov MR

The virulence of the Asian and North American strains of the gypsy moth nucleopolyhedrovirus was studied. Viruses were passaged in gypsy moth larvae, and high-performance sequencing of viral genomes was carried out. It was shown that the virulence of the Asian strain, which was initially 100-fold lower than the North American strain, increased to the level of the latter after passaging. However, the deletion of virulence-associated vef-1 gene, revealed in the genome of the original Asian strain, indicated that it did not recover after passaging. Thus, the increase in virulence was likely determined by other changes in the genome.