Abstract
The baculovirus egt gene encodes an ecdysteroid UDP-glucosyltransferase(EGT) which catalyzes the transfer of glucose from UDP-glucose to the insect moltion hormone ecdysteroid resulting in a functionally inactive ecdysteroid. In baculovirus-infected insect larvae, EGT has been shown block molting and pupation. In this study, we compared the development of 4th and 5th instar silkworm, Bombyx mori, larvae injected with either wild-type bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) or a mutant BmNPV(BmEGTZ) in which the egt gene was disrupted by the insertion of a lacZ gene cassette. Larvae injected with BmEGTZ died roughly 12 h more rapidly compared to indentical larvae infected with BmNPV. In addition, BmEGTZ- infected larvae prematurely stopped feeding and gain less weight compared to BmNPV-infected larvae. In order to investigate why BmEGTZ-infected larvae died more rapidly than BmNPV-infected larvae, the array of hemolymph proteins in BmEGTZ-or BmNPV-infected larvae were analyzed by SDS-PAGE. The hemolymph of BmEGTZ-infected larvae showed virus-specific proteins, including polyhedrin, about 12 h earlier than the hemolymph of BmNPV-infected larvae
