Insect Viruses

Peter D Christian, National Institute for Biological Standardization and Control, South Mimms, UK
Robert D Possee, CEH Oxford, Oxford, UK

Published online: July 2008

DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020712

Viruses from over 16 families have been isolated from insects to date and show as much variation in structural and organizational paradigms as viruses from most other animal classes. Unique to the insect viruses is the ability of several virus families to produce a large pseudocrystalline occlusion body that protects the mature virus particles in the environment. Such occlusion bodies have led to these viruses evolving a complex array of associations with their insect host and in many cases causing large-scale disease epizootics. Among the remaining nonoccluded insect viruses all of the basic structural and organizational paradigms are present in different families. However, the life history strategies of their insect hosts has led the insect viruses to evolve some intriguing replicative strategies of their own that have few, if any, counterparts among the other animal viruses.

Keywords: insect virus; occluded virus; nonoccluded virus; small RNA virus

Figure 1. Morphology of some insect viruses. (a) Occlusion of mature intracellular virions (v) of Amsacta moorei EPV into spheroidin protein (S) at 72 h p.i. showing the outer (arrowed) and inner viral membrane (arrow head). The bar represents 500 nm. (b) Scanning electron micrograph of a polyhedron of Type 1 CPV clearly showing the cubic shape and surface pits. The bar represents 500 nm. (c) Thin-sectioned pellets of purified invertebrate iridescent virus 9. The bar represents 200 nm. (d) Electron micrograph of purified Cricket paralysis virus (CrPV), negatively stained with 2% (w/v) uranyl acetate. The bar represents 100 nm. Reproduced with permission from Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Oxford.
Figure 2. Life cycle of polydnaviruses. The parts of the cycle that relate to the transmission of wasp genomic DNA and therefore to proviral DNA are shown by the claret arrows. Those parts of the cycle that apply only to virus replication and assembly/transmission are shown by the green arrows.
Figure 3. Schematic representation of the genomes of (a) picornaviruses, (b) dicistroviruses, (c) iflaviruses, (d) Kelp fly virus and (e) Acyrthosiphon pisum virus.
Figure 4. Reconstructions of the surface structure of CrPV and Poliovirus (PV). The surface of CrPV does not show the characteristic ‘canyons’ around the pentavalent axes (P) that are obvious in PV.
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Viruses Infecting Animals
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Article Title: Insect Viruses
 
How to Cite close
Christian, Peter D, and Possee, Robert D(Jul 2008) Insect Viruses. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020712]