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The pl0 gene of Spodoptera exigua multiple nuclear polyhedrosis virus (SeMNPV) was localized on the XbaI fragment H (5.1 kb) of the physical map of the viral genome. The coding sequence of the SeMNPV pl0 gene is 264 nucleotides (nt) long corresponding to a predicted protein of 88 amino acids with an MuF of 9607. The SeMNPV pl0 protein showed only limited amino acid identity (39 % and 26 %, respectively) to those of Orgyia pseudotsugata MNPV (OpMNPV) and Autographa californica MNPV (AcMNPV) and thus appears less conserved than other viral proteins. The SeMNPV pl0 gene was expressed by a transcript of approximately 450 nt, which started in the conserved baculovirus late gene promoter motifTAAG. The leader of the SeMNPV pl0 transcript was AT-rich (92 %) and at 36 nt was the shortest leader of all baculovirus major late genes reported so far. The SeMPNV pl 0 transcript terminated 6nt downstream from a putative poly(A) signal sequence (AATAAA); the latter was 61 nt downstream of the translational stop codon TAA. Upstream and downstream of the p 10 gene, partial putative ORFs were found that showed significant amino acid sequence identity to the baculovirus p26 and p74 proteins. It is concluded that the region of SeMNPV DNA containing the p 10 gene is collinear with the corresponding regions in the AcMNPV and OpMNPV genomes.