Harper Adams University 1 article published in JoVE Immunology and Infection Protocols for Investigating the Host-tissue Distribution, Transmission-mode, and Effect on the Host Fitness of a Densovirus in the Cotton Bollworm Xianming Yang1, Pengjun Xu2, Robert I. Graham3, He Yuan1, Kongming Wu1 1State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 2Tobacco Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 3Crop and Environment Sciences, Harper Adams University Here, we present a protocol to investigate the host-tissue distribution, transmission mode, and effect on the host fitness of a densovirus within a lepidopteran species, the cotton bollworm. This protocol can also be used for studying the interaction between other orally-transmitted viruses and their insect hosts.