C.P. van der Beek. Doctoral Thesis 1980. 1, page 134. Webster and Granoff. The viral genome consists of a single molecule of circular, supercoiled double stranded DNA, from 90 to 230 kbp depending on the virus.
Virions consist of one or more nucleocapsids enclosed within a single envelope.
Baculoviruses have no equivalent virus which infects plants or vertebrates. They are very host specific, do not infect beneficial nontarget insects, and have shown no hazardous effects against mammals or other animals. This group of viruses is therefore considered safe and ecologically acceptable for use as pesticidal agents. Baculoviruses have now been used extensively as efficient eukaryotic expression vectors for a wide variety of genes in both cell cultures and whole insects.