How does a baculovirus manipulate behavior of the host insect?

通过对家蚕核型多角体病毒突变体的筛选，我们发现了一个与病毒诱导的异常行为有关的基因ARIF-1。ARIF-1突变体在培养细胞中没有表现出任何表型异常，但在家蚕幼虫中表现出明显的低病毒生长。我们还利用来自健康和病毒感染家蚕的脑mRNA进行了RNA-SEQ实验，鉴定了10多个寄主基因的表达受到病毒感染的改变。对这些宿主基因的功能分析目前正在进行中。

By screening Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus mutants, we identified a gene, arif-1, that is required for virus-induced abnormal behavior. The arif-1 mutants did not show any phenotypic abnormalities in cultured cells, but exhibited a strikingly low virus growth in B. mori larvae.We also performed RNA-seq experiments using brain mRNA from healthy and virus-infected silkworms and identified more than 10 host genes of which expression was altered by virus infection. Functional analyses of these host genes are now in progress.