Expression of Chilo iridescent virus (CIV) gene of 188 L in baculovirus expression vector system and development of antibody

Chilo iridescent virus (CIV) is an insect virus belonging to the Iridoviridae family. CIV is of ecological and economic importance as it infects various herbivorous insects that cause significant damage in agriculture. As a result of the studies carried out so far, it has been determined that there are 54 different proteins in the CIV structure. One of these structural proteins is encoded by the 118L open reading frame (ORF), a potential envelope protein that could be vital to the virus replication cycle. 118L is a gene with homologs in all iridovirides. However, the function of the protein encoded by this gene in CIV is unknown. In order to elucidate the function of the 118L gene, the expression of the gene and the development of antibodies against the target protein constitute an important step. In this thesis, after the 118L gene was amplified from the virus genome by polymerase chain reaction, its gene was expressed in the baculovirus expression vector system, which is one of the gene expression systems. In addition, antibody development was achieved using the purified recombinant protein. As a result, the 118L protein that can be used to elucidate the function of the 118L protein in virus structure and replication and the antibody that can be used against this protein have been successfully obtained.