SBIR Phase I: Oral delivery systems for sterilizing strains of a sexually-transmitted insect virus

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是支持广泛分发和采用有效和高效控制鳞翅目的杀菌生物农药。鳞翅目，如玉米耳虫，通过产生抗性来规避某些作物的杀虫特性。模型表明，在玉米耳虫群体中加入不育昆虫可以抑制群体中抗性个体的发生率。增强这种绝育昆虫生物农药的口腔传染性将改善产品的生产、分销，最重要的是，便于使用，以支持农民采用。拟议的项目开发了一种功能性的口服感染配方，用于性传播的绝育病毒，玉米Helicoverpa nudivirus 2 （HzNV2）的特定菌株。由此产生的技术将适用于对成年玉米耳虫蛾进行消毒的口服配方的原型设计和测试。提出了遗传选择和候选基因方法来提高口腔感染所需的病毒进入复合物的稳定性。本项目将用HzNV-2缺失的基因修饰病毒包膜，从而提高病毒粒子的稳定性。将检测假型病毒是否增加了口腔传染性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Broader Impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to support widespread distribution and adoption of sterilizing biopesticides that are effective and efficient to control Lepidoptera. Lepidopterans, such as the corn earworm, circumvent insecticidal properties of certain crops by developing resistance. Models show that incorporating sterile insects in a corn earworm population can suppress the incidence of resistant individuals in the populations. Enhancing oral infectivity of this sterilizing insect biopesticide will improve product manufacturing, distribution and most importantly, ease of use to support farmer adoption.The proposed project develops a functional orally-infectious formula of a specific strain of the sexually-transmitted, sterilizing-virus, Helicoverpa zea nudivirus 2 (HzNV2). The resulting technology will be suitable for prototyping and testing oral formulations for sterilizing adult corn earworm moths. Genetic selection and candidate gene approaches are proposed to improve stability of the virus entry complex required for oral infectivity. This project will decorate viral envelopes with genes absent from HzNV-2 and thereby improve virion stability. The pseudotyped virus will be assayed for increased oral infectivity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.