Isolation of a Spodoptera exigua baculovirus recombinant with a 10.6 kbp genome deletion that retains biological activity.

When Spodoptera exigua multicapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus (SeMNPV) is grown in insect cell culture, defective viruses are generated. These viruses lack about 25 kbp of sequence information and are no longer infectious for insects. This makes the engineering of SeMNPV for improved insecticidal activity or as expression vectors difficult to achieve.