The Bac-to-Bac® Baculovirus Expression System provides a rapid and efficient method to generate recombinant baculoviruses (Ciccarone et al., 1997). This method was developed by researchers at Monsanto, and is based on site-specific transposition of an expression cassette into a baculovirus shuttle vector (bacmid) propagated in E. coli (Luckow et al., 1993). The major components of the Bac-to-Bac® Baculovirus Expression System include:
        • A choice of pFastBac™ donor plasmids that allow generation of an expression construct containing the gene of interest where expression of the gene of interest is controlled by a baculovirus-specific promoter.
        • An E. coli host strain, DH10Bac™, that contains a baculovirus shuttle vector (bacmid) and a helper plasmid, and allows generation of a recombinant bacmid following transposition of the pFastBac™ expression construct.