Protein Expression in Whole Insect Larvae
- Larvae for protein production are raised from eggs hatched on a controlled diet. The manipulation of this diet, as well as the dispensing of the eggs, incubation and inoculation with baculovirus are all automated for reproducible control of the process
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- A small number of insect larvae are hand-injected with recombinant baculovirus prepared and amplified in culture. This preliminary step is important in order to verify expression in whole insects and to select optimal recombinants for further development. It also is used to generate the proprietary inoculum for mass oral infection of production quantities of insect larvae
- Larvae that have reached the fifth instar of development are infected orally by application of the viral inoculum to the surface of the diet
- Inoculated larvae are incubated for 96 hours under carefully controlled conditions, harvested, frozen and stored until needed for protein recovery
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