Time was when only virologists and a few bug experts paid any attention to a virus, from the insect Autographa californica, which kills moth larvae. But now the virus may turn out to be a versatile tool for molecular biologists.
A few years ago, they found they could add the genes for certain proteins to the virus, put it in cultured insect cells, and get the cells to produce the proteins. Now, University of Chicago developmental biologist Nipam Patel believes the virus can be used to add genes to a variety of new hosts. He found the virus, carrying added bits of DNA, would enter insect, crustacean, and frog cells. The virus has a coat that fuses with the cell membranes of all the organisms tested so far, Patel reported last month at the meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The virus itself won't replicate in alien cells, but Patel, with Daniel Oppenheimer and Angus McNichol, has confirmed the vector works by inserting marker genes. Next, he wants to try a gene believed to influence leg development. Usually researchers have to make a different vector for every organism to which they hope to add a gene. But this baculovirus, Patel predicts, "can infect almost any cell."
Other researchers are also exploring the virus's new role. Pathologist Nancy Bucher from Boston University School of Medicine reported last month in San Francisco at the meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology that she has used it to put marker genes into lab-grown liver cells. The drawback of the technique, says biologist Mark Martindale of the University of Chicago, is that it's hard to control which cells are receiving the genes. Nevertheless, "I think everyone will want to use it."
