Latency of Baculoviruses

Due to their widespread natural occurrence, baculoviruses and their insect hosts are a convenient model to study the pathogen-host interactions. However, the absence of reliable techniques for the detection of latent viral infection, which is common in insect populations, is among the constraints of such studies. The recent progress in molecular biology techniques made it possible to obtain the fundamental data on the detection of latent viruses in different insect species as well as on the mechanism of latent infection induction, which are reviewed below. The obtained data in many respects expand our knowledge about the role of latency in the system of interactions between baculoviruses and their insect hosts at different ecological levels.