Involvement of host factors in transcription from baculovirus very late promoters - a review

The baculovirus expression vector system has emerged as the system of choice for the expression of a number of heterologous genes of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic origin. This system utilizes the baculovirus very late, hyperactive polyhedrin and p10 promoters to drive the transcription of foreign genes. Regulation of transcription from these promoters is presently not well understood even though a number of viral gene products that may be important for transcription have been identified. Fresh insight into host-virus interactions during baculovirus pathogenesis is now offered by the identification of insect host factors that interact with transcriptionally essential motifs of these promoters as well as cis-acting enhancer-like elements upstream from the promoter.