Construction of a Novel Baculovirus Autographa californica Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus Producing the Fluorescent Polyhedra

A novel recombinant baculovirus Autographa californica nuclear polyhedrosis virus (ACNPV) producing the green fluorescent polyhedra was constructed and characterized. The recombinant virus was stably produced fluorescent polyhedra in the infected cells and the morphology of the polyhedra was nearly similar to that of wild-type AcNPV. For the production of the fluorescent polyhedral the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene was introduced under the control of polyhedrin gene promoter of AcNPV by translational fusion in the front and back of intact polyhedrin gene. The recombinant baculovirus was named as CXEP, As expected, the 93 kDa fusion protein was expressed in the CXEP-infected cells. Interestingly, however, the cells infected with CXEP also showed a 33 kDa protein band as cells infected with wild-type AcNPV. The results of Southern blot analysis and plaque assay suggested that two types of baculoviruses expressing the GFP fusion protein or only native polyhedrin were formed through homologous recombination between two polyhedrin genes in the same orientation. Thus, this system can be applied for the production of recombinant polyhedra with foreign gene product of diverse interest.