Identification of the Polyhedrin Gene of Thai Bombyx mori Nucleopolyhedrovirus

ABSTRACT: The full-length of the polyhedrin gene (polh) of Thai Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) was cloned and sequenced. The polh sequence contained a 735 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding a protein of 245 amino acids with a predicted molecular mass of 28.8 kDa. The nucleotide sequence of Thai BmNPV polh shows greater than 98 % identity to the sequences of five different BmNPV polh genes that were previously characterized. The high degree of sequence identity with the polh sequences of other BmNPVs suggests that they are orthologues of the BmNPV polh gene in this study. Comparison of Thai BmNPV polh sequence with other polhs of Lepidoteran NPVs (Autographa californica, Helicoverpa armigera, Spodoptera litura and S. exigua) indicated that the nucleotide and amino acid sequences were greater than 65 % and 78% identical, respectively