Many parasites manipulate host behaviour to enhance parasite transmission and survival. A fascinating example is baculoviruses, which often induce death in caterpillar hosts at elevated positions ('tree-top' disease). To date, little is known about the underlying processes leading to this adaptive host manipulation. Here, we show that the baculovirus Spodoptera exigua multiple nucleopolyhedrovi...

The genome of Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) is predicted to contain six RING finger proteins: IAP1, ORF35, IAP2, CG30, IE2, and PE38. Several other members of the RING finger family have recently been shown to have the ubiquitin-ligase (E3) activity. We thus examined whether BmNPV RING finger proteins have the E3 activity. In vitro ubiquitination assay with the rabbit reticulocyte ly...

Virus infections often lead to formation of aggregates and aggresomes in host cells. In this study, production of aggregates and aggresomes by the highly expressed protein polyhedrin of Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV) at 24 h postinfection (p.i.) was detected with a fluorescent molecular dye, and verified by colocalization of polyhedrin with aggresomal markers, GFP-250 and γ-tubulin. P...

F proteins of group II nucleopolyhedroviruses (NPVs) are envelope fusion proteins essential for virus entry and egress. An F-null Helicoverpa armigera single nucleocapsid NPV (HearNPV) bacmid, HaBacDeltaF, was constructed. This bacmid could not produce infectious budded virus (BV) when transfected into HzAM1 cells, showing that F protein is essential for cell-to-cell transmission of BVs. When H...

This paper deals with 21 species of Hishimonus Ishihara and two species of Litura Knight from the Indian subcontinent. The following new species are described: Hishimonus acuminatus sp. nov. (India: Mizoram), H. distinctus sp. nov. (India: Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu. Sri Lanka), H. dwipae sp. nov. (Sri Lanka), H. longisetosus sp. nov. (India: Karnataka), H. spicans sp. nov. (India: Karnataka...

We report here the complete annotated 6,510,053-bp draft genome sequence of Bacillus thuringiensis serovar tolworthi strain Na205-3, which is toxic for Helicoverpa armigera. This strain potentially contains nine insecticidal toxin genes homologous to cry1Aa12, cry1Ab1, cry1Ab8, cry1Ba1, cry1Af1, cry1Ia10, vip1Bb1, vip2Ba2, and vip3Aa6.

Studies of deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis following inoculation with nucleo-polyhedrosis show a large burst of viral deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis late in the infection period.

A composite material comprising randomly distributed spherical particles of two different isotropic dielectric–magnetic materials is homogenized using the second–order strong– property–fluctuation theory in the long–wavelength approximation. Whereas neither of the two constituent materials by itself supports planewave propagation with negative phase velocity (NPV), the homogenized composite mat...

[This corrects the article on p. 77 in vol. 10, PMID: 27147998.].

Following a meta-analysis of test accuracy studies, the translation of summary results into clinical practice is potentially problematic. The sensitivity, specificity and positive (PPV) and negative (NPV) predictive values of a test may differ substantially from the average meta-analysis findings, because of heterogeneity. Clinicians thus need more guidance: given the meta-analysis, is a test l...