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Viruses are usually thought to form parasitic associations with hosts, but all members of the family  Polydnaviridae  are obligate mutualists of insects called parasitoid wasps. Phylogenetic data founded on sequence comparisons of viral genes indicate that polydnaviruses in the genus  Bracovirus  (BV) are closely related to pathogenic nudiviruses and baculoviruses. However, pronounced differences in the biology of BVs and baculoviruses together with high divergence of many shared genes make it unclear whether BV homologs still retain baculovirus-like functions. Here we report that virions from  Microplitis demolitor  bracovirus (MdBV) contain multiple baculovirus-like and nudivirus-like conserved gene products. We further show that RNA interference effectively and specifically knocks down MdBV gene expression. Coupling RNAi knockdown methods with functional assays, we examined the activity of six genes in the MdBV conserved gene set that are known to have essential roles in transcription ( lef-4, lef-9 ), capsid assembly ( vp39, vlf-1 ), and envelope formation ( p74, pif-1 ) during baculovirus replication. Our results indicated that MdBV produces a baculovirus-like RNA polymerase that transcribes virus structural genes. Our results also supported a conserved role for  vp39, vlf-1, p74 , and  pif-1  as structural components of MdBV virions. Additional experiments suggested that  vlf-1  together with the nudivirus-like gene  int-1  also have novel functions in regulating excision of MdBV proviral DNAs for packaging into virions. Overall, these data provide the first experimental insights into the function of BV genes in virion formation.

Mutualistic Polydnaviruses Share Essential Replication Gene Functions with Pathogenic Ancestors