Centre of Excellence for Genetics and Genomics of Silkmoths, Laboratory of Molecular Genetics, Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad-500076.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
RNA interference (RNAi) approach has been used for antiviral therapy with varied degree of success in different eukaryotic systems. In the study reported here we speculated that by simultaneously abrogating several essential genes of invading Bombyx mori Nuclear Polyhedrosis Virus (BmNPV) it is possible to mount higher level of protective effect against viral infection in silkworm. Towards achieving this goal, we constructed piggybac transposon-mediated transgenic silkworm strains that expressed double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) specific to four essential viral genes placed in tandem in flip-flop (MFF) orientation. We also obtained transgenic silkworms that expressed only sense (S) or antisense (AS) forms of these baculoviral genes. Our results show significant inhibition of baculovirus proliferation in MFF harbouring transgenic lines registered significantly higher level of resistance to baculovirus infection as compared to the silkworm lines carrying single essential bauloviral target gene. These results suggest that the RNAi pathway can be successfully exploited in developing baculovirus resistant silkworm strains which could find commercial applications in sericulture.
