Pathology of a Gammabaculovirus in Its Natural Balsam Fir Sawfly (Neodiprion abietis) Host

The Neodiprion abietis Gammabaculovirus (Baculoviridae: NeabNPV) is virulent, highly contagious, and infects only midgut epithelial cells of balsam fir sawfly larvae, but infections can carry through to adult sawflies in the midgut. Larval infections are characterized by hypertrophy of midgut epithelial cell nuclei, where virogenic stromata develop to produce nucleocapsids that are singly enveloped before occlusion into occlusion bodies. Infected, occlusion body-laden cells slough from the midgut epithelium as a result of a dissolution of the basal lamina. Infected cells undergo lysis, and viral occlusion bodies exit affected larvae in a watery diarrhea to infect other balsam fir sawfly larvae. A budded virus stage was not observed, but nucleocapsid and occlusion body formation resembled the development of occlusion-derived virions and occlusion bodies in lepidopteran alphabaculoviruses.