Infection and Replication of Insect Pathogenic Viruses in Tissue Culture

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the recent findings concerning the use of continuous cell lines for the study of viruses pathogenic to insects. The type of tissue culture medium used for growing cells may have an influence on the development of insect viruses. Insect pathogenic viruses are generally divided into two main groups: occluded and nonoccluded. Virus inoculum of several types can be used to infect insect tissue cultures: (2) infected tissues and tissue extracts; (2) naked viral nucleic acid; (3) virions purified from polyhedra; (4) infectious hemolymph; and (5) cell-free infected tissue culture medium. The latter two types of inoculum are the most commonly used. Several studies on the infection and replication of insect pathogenic viruses are also presented in the chapter. These studies investigate the biochemical events in virus replication and optimum conditions for viral infection and virus development. Alkaline treatment of polyhedral inclusion bodies to release the virus particles is a well-documented and simple procedure. However, investigations have shown that virion suspensions prepared by dissolving polyhedra in dilute sodium carbonate solutions are not reliable inocula for infecting cultures.