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分析表明，该病毒具有一个重要的基因调控宿主的内分泌。利用本研究中发现的支持昆虫痘病毒复制的培养细胞，构建了缺失该基因功能的敲除突变体。野生型病毒感染宿主后，其保幼激素（JH）滴度维持在较高水平，导致宿主在幼虫期死亡。另一方面，基因功能缺陷型病毒感染的宿主的JH滴度与健康宿主的相似，这使得感染的宿主向化蛹发展。这些发现表明，昆虫痘病毒具有干扰JH滴度以操纵宿主发育的基因。

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.