A polydnavirus, Cotesia plutellae bracovirus (CpBV), possesses segmented genome located on chromosome(s) of an endoparasitoid wasp, C. plutellae. An episomal viral segment (CpBV-S3) consists of 11,017 bp encoding two putative open reading frames (ORFs). ORF301 shows amino acid sequence homologies (28~50%) with RNase T2s of various organisms. It also contains BEN domain in C-terminal region. ORF302 is a hypothetical gene, which is also found in other bracoviruses. Both genes were expressed in larvae of Plutella xylostella parasitized by C. plutellae. ORF301 and ORF302 were transiently expressed in hemocyte, fat body, gut, and epidermis of P. xylostella. To analyze effects of these genes on the parasitism, the segment of CpBV-S3 was injected to non parasitized larvae of P. xylostella, in which the two genes were expressed at least for four days post-injection. The P. xylostella larvae injected with CpBV-S3 exhibited significant immunosuppression, such as reduction in total hemocyte population, suppression of immune associated genes including cecropin, pro-phenoloxidase (PO) and serpin1, and impairment in nodule formation behavior of hemocytes in response to bacterial challenge. Each gene expression in the treated larvae was inhibited by co-injecting respective double strand RNA (dsRNA) specific to each ORF. Injection of dsRNA of ORF301 could rescue the immunosuppression by the viral segmenttreated larvae, but not by ORF302 specific dsRNA. The larval injected with CpBV-S3 exhibited an enhanced susceptibility to baculovirus infection. These results indicate that ORF301 of CpBV-S3, which containing BEN domain, suppresses both cellular and humoral immune responses in P. xylostella.

• Bokri Park(Department of Bioresource Sciences, Andong National University)
• Yonggyun Kim(Department of Bioresource Sciences, Andong National University)