Transactivation of Epinotia aporema granulovirus (EpapGV) promoters in Anticarsia gemmatalis cells

MARINA E. BIEDMA; CAROLINA JAQUENOD DE GIUSTI; ALEJANDRA CARREA; MARCELO F. BERRETTA; ALICIA SCIOCCO DE CAP; VÍCTOR ROMANOWSKI

Warwick, UK

Conferencia; 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology and 9th International Conference on Bacillus thuringiensis; 2008

Society for Invertebrate Pathology

Epinotia aporema (Lep. Tortricidae) and Anticarsia gemmatalis (Lep. Noctuidae) are major pests of legume crops in South America. On many occasions they are found simultaneously in the same fields. A granulovirus (EpapGV) characterized in our laboratory exhibits a great potential as bioinsecticide and AgMNPV has been successfully used in Brazil. In more temperate climats the insecticidal activity of both viruses needs improvement in order to compete with chemical pesticides. To this end we developed a system to genetically improve AgMNPV taking advantage of the availability of the susceptible cell line UFLAg-286 and speculated about eventually extending its host range by inserting large segments of EpapGV DNA. One condition for this strategy is that the EpapGV promoters should be active in the heterologous context of AgMNPV-infected Anticarsia gemmatalis cells, that are not permissive for infecction by this GV. To evaluate this hypothesis we transfected UFLAg-286 with plasmid constructs containing the E. coli lacZ under the control of various EpapGV and AgMNPV promoters. Our results indicate that ie1 promoter of either virus enables expression of lacZ in the absence of any viral factor and that transcription driven by EpapGV late and very late promoters can be transactivated by heterologous gene products during AgMNPV infection.