Research on a disturbance mechanism of endocrine system of host by an insect virus.

昆虫痘病毒的全基因组序列表明，该病毒具有操纵宿主内分泌的重要基因。利用本研究中发现支持昆虫痘病毒复制的培养细胞，构建了缺乏该基因功能的敲除突变体。感染野生型病毒的寄主的保幼激素(JH)效价维持在较高水平，导致寄主在幼虫期死亡。另一方面，感染该基因功能缺陷病毒的寄主的JH滴度与健康寄主的JH滴度相似，这使得受感染的寄主向化蛹发展。这些发现表明，昆虫痘病毒有一个基因可以干扰JH滴度来操纵宿主的发育。

Whole genome sequences of entomopoxviruses revealed the viruses had an important gene for manipulation of the host endocrine. Using cultured cell that was found to support an entomopoxvirus replication in present research, knock-out mutant lacking this gene function was constructed. Juvenile hormone(JH) titer of the hosts infected with wild type virus was maintained to be high, resulting in host's death in larval stage. On the other hand, JH titer of the hosts infected with the gene function-defective virus was similar to that of healthy hosts, which allowed infected hosts to develop toward pupation. These findings indicate that entomopoxviruses have a gene that disturbs JH titer to manipulate hosts development.