Neda Hashemi - Department of Food Science and Technology, Azad University of Sabzevar
Sayed Ali Mortazavi - Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad
Samane Gazerani - Department of Food Science and Technology, Azad University of Sabzevar

Baculoviruses are insect-specific viruses widely used for the production of recombinant proteins, vaccines and viral pesticides. It has become a common expression system for both basic research and large-scale commercial applications. The baculoviruses expression system is based on the replacement of non-essential, viral gene, termed polyhedrin, with a gene of interest. The insertion of foreign DNA at the polyhedrin locus within the viral genome results in incorporation of the foreign DNA into progeny virus particles and subsequent high-level expression of the recombinant protein within eukaryotic insect cell lines. A main factor to the popularity of insect cell expression is the ability of insect cells to produce relatively large quantities eukaryotic proteins in a relatively short period of time.In this review, we focus on the structure of baculoviruses and applications of baculovirus-insect cell expression system.

baculoviruse, insect cell culture, cell line, expression system