Comparative Study on the Infectivity and Spore Surface Protein of Nosema bombycis and Its Morphological Variant Strain

A new morphological variant strain of microsporidium was produced by infecting the mulberry looper, Hemerophilaatrilineata [Phthonandria atrilineata], with Nosema bombycis successively for 24 times, and named 24Nbh. Comparativestudies on morphology, infectivity and spore surface protein were conducted. 24Nbh was short and wide, and had asignificant difference (P0.01) over the Nb spores. The infectivity tests conducted on second instar silkworm larvaeshowed that IC50 of 24Nbh was 1.98104 spores mL-1 and of Nb was 1.72103 spores mL-1, thus indicating that the infectivityof Nb decreased 11.5 times after multiplying in mulberry looper for 24 times. The IC50 of spores from silkworm infected with24 Nbh was 6.9 times less than Nb, showing that the infectivity of 24Nbh spores rejuvenated very fast when reinfected tosilkworms, further more, the length and width of such spore was larger than 24Nbh (P0.01) and smaller than Nb (P0.05).The SDS-PAGE profiles of Nb and 24Nbh were generally the same, 4 distinct proteins of 12, 17, 30, 33 kDa were obtainedwith difference in quantity. When 120 g of protein was applied for 2D-PAGE, five suspected different proteins withdifference in quantity were observed. These results demonstrate that these differential proteins maybe associated withvariation in infectivity of the spores.