Abstract
The microRNA (miRNA) pathway is well established to be involved in host-pathogen interactions. As key insect pollinators, bees are suffering from widely spreading viruses, especially honeybees and bumblebees. In order to better understand bee-virus interaction, we comparatively analyzed the involvement of the bumblebee miRNA pathway upon infection by two different viruses. In our setup, an avirulent infection is induced by slow bee paralysis virus (SBPV) and a virulent infection is induced by Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV). Our results showed the increased expressions of dicer-1 and ago-1 upon SBPV infection. There were 17 and 12 bumblebee miRNAs differentially expressed upon SBPV and IAPV infections, respectively. These results may indicate the involvement of the host miRNA pathway in bumblebee-virus interaction. However, silencing of dicer-1 did not influence the genome copy number of SBPV. Target prediction for these differentially expressed miRNAs showed their possible involvement in targeting viral genomic RNA and in the regulation of networks in bumblebee. Our study opens a new insight into bee-virus interaction meditated by host miRNAs.
Highlights
The microRNA pathway is well established to be involved in host-pathogen interactions
Our previous study in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris showed that Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) replicated very fast and acted as a very virulent virus whereas slow bee paralysis virus (SBPV) replicated fast but induced no mortality after injection; both IAPV and SBPV infections could induce the expression of dicer-2, while IAPV, but not SBPV, infection triggered the production of predominantly 22 nt-long virus-derived siRNAs2
We measured the expression of B. terrestris dicer-1 and ago-1 upon viral infections
Summary
Significant effects of SBPV and IAPV infections on the expressions of dicer-1 and ago-1. Small RNA sequencing reveals differentially expressed miRNAs upon SBPV and IAPV infections. We presented indications that the expression of core components of the miRNA pathway could be altered upon viral infections in B. terrestris, especially after SBPV infection, which implied the potential involvement of the miRNA pathway in host-virus interaction. To explore this possibility further, we used small RNA sequencing to find out which miRNAs could be influenced. Our results revealed that 17 and 12 host miRNAs were differentially expressed upon infection with SBPV and IAPV, respectively (Table 1, Table S2 and S3). Targets of homologous miRNA in insects and its relative prediction in Bombus terrestris
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