title: Genome of a Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus strain isolated from India.
abstract: Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV), a member of the Baculoviridae, is a major pathogen of silkworm and has also been recently developed as an expression vector for heterologous gene expression in the silkworm larvae and pupae. To better understand the diversity of this important baculovirus, we sequenced the complete genome of the BmNPV strain isolated from India, where its host is available throughout the year due to its tropical climate. The genome of the Indian strain consists of 127,879 nucleotides, with a G+C content of 40.36%. There are 138 open reading frames (ORFs) encoding the predicted proteins of more than 50 amino acids. Genomic comparison of the Indian strain with 3 other reported BmNPV strains showed that the baculovirus repeat ORFs (bro) and homologous repeat regions (hr's) are highly variable. These results suggest that the BmNPV strain heterogeneity is mainly caused by single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and changes in the hr's and bro genes.
authors.affiliation: Agriculture Key Laboratory of Agricultural Entomology, Institute of Insect Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Hai-Wei
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Xue-Chao
authors.initials: XC
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yi-Peng
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Xiao-Wen
authors.initials: XW
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Chuan-Xi
authors.initials: CX
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001482:Base Composition; D012831:Bombyx / Q000821:virology; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics*; D016679:Genome, Viral; D007194:India; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017924:Nucleopolyhedroviruses / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral