Production of Recombinant Baculoviruses Using Rapid Screening Vectors that Contain the Gene for β-Galactosidase

Baculovirus/insect cell expression systems have become a popular choice for the production of high levels of recombinant proteins (, , ). However, the identification and selection of the recombinant baculovirus have been difficult and time-consuming. Screening recombinant viruses and purifying virus containing the foreign gene away from contaminating wild-type virus can be laborious. The process can involve numerous rounds of plaque purification by using visual screening or hybridization techniques to detect recombinant plaques. A key complaint from newcomers to the field of baculovirology is that recombinant viral plaques are almost invisible in comparison to those produced by wild-type virus. Our laboratory has worked on the improvement and refinement of expression vectors for introducing recombinant baculovirus into insect cells (, , )