Expression of a neurotoxin gene improves the insecticidal activity of Spodoptera litura nucleopolyhedrovirus (SpltNPV).

SpltNPV-C3 is a novel nucleopolyhedrovirus (NPV) screened from 189 wild Spodoptera litura nucleopolyhedrovirus (SpltNPV) clones collected throughout Japan and has high potential insecticidal activity against S. litura. In this study, we constructed two recombinant SpltNPVs, SpltNPV-Δegt and SpltNPV-Δegt-BmK, which were characterized by the disruption of the UDP-glucosyltransferase gene (egt) only and by replacing the egt locus with the Buthus martensi insect-specific toxin gene (BmK ITa1), respectively.