New Viruses from the Ectoparasite Mite <i>Varroa destructor</i> Infesting <i>Apis mellifera</i> and <i>Apis cerana</i>
2019
Sofia Levin | Noa Sela | Tal Erez | David Nestel | Jeffery Pettis | Peter Neumann | Nor Chejanovsky
<i>Varroa destructor</i> is an ectoparasitic mite of Asian or Eastern honeybees <i>Apis cerana (A. cerana)</i> which has become a serious threat to European subspecies of Western honeybees <i>Apis mellifera</i> (<i>A. mellifera</i>) within the last century. <i>V. destructor</i> and its vectored honeybee viruses became serious threats for colony survival. This is a short period for pathogen- and host-populations to adapt. To look for possible variation in the composition of viral populations we performed RNA metagenomic analysis of the Western honeybee subspecies <i>A. m. ligustica</i>, <i>A. m. syriaca</i>, <i>A. m. intermissa</i>, and <i>A. cerana</i> and their respective <i>V. destructor</i> mites. The analysis revealed two novel viruses: Varroa orthomyxovirus-1 (VOV-1) in <i>A. mellifera</i> and <i>V. destructor</i> and a Hubei like-virga virus-14 homolog in <i>V. destructor</i>. VOV-1 was more prevalent in <i>V. destructor</i> than in <i>A. mellifera</i> and we found evidence for viral replication in both hosts. Interestingly, we found differences in viral loads of <i>A. cerana</i> and their <i>V. destructor</i>, <i>A. m. intermissa</i>, and its <i>V. destructor</i> showed partial similarity, while <i>A. m. ligustica</i> and <i>A. m. syriaca</i> and their varroa where very similar. Deformed wing virus exhibited 82.20%, 99.20%, 97.90%, and 0.76% of total viral reads in <i>A. m. ligustica</i>, <i>A. m. syriaca</i>, <i>A. m. intermissa</i>, and <i>A. cerana,</i> respectively. This is the first report of a complete segmented-single-stranded negative-sense RNA virus genome in honeybees and <i>V. destructor</i> mites.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Directory of Open Access Journals
