AGO2 and viral infectious disease: Nevertheless, by showing that silencing Dcr2 and Ago2 results in increased mlv transcript levels in High Five cells (Fig. 5), and by identifying BmN-derived Ago2-bound siRNAs mapping to the genome of three different lepidopteran persistent viruses (Fig. 4), our work suggests a role of the siRNAi pathway in controlling the levels of persistent viral infection in lepidopteran cells.