Abstract
Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), a single-stranded RNA virus, has a worldwide distribution and affects honeybees as well as other important pollinators. IAPV infection in honeybees has been successfully repressed by exploiting the RNA interference (RNAi) pathway of the insect’s innate immune response with virus-specific double stranded RNA (dsRNA). Here we investigated the effect of IAPV infection in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris and its tissue tropism. B. terrestris is a common pollinator of wild flowers in Europe and is used for biological pollination in agriculture. Infection experiments demonstrated a similar pathology and tissue tropism in bumblebees as reported for honeybees. The effect of oral administration of virus-specific dsRNA was examined and resulted in an effective silencing of the virus, irrespective of the length. Interestingly, we observed that non-specific dsRNA was also efficient against IAPV. However further study is needed to clarify the precise mechanism behind this effect. Finally we believe that our data are indicative of the possibility to use dsRNA for a broad range viral protection in bumblebees.
Highlights
Managed bees are used worldwide as pollinators to aid food production in open field as well as in greenhouses [1]
Previous studies showed that 0.5 × 107 Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) particles is near the minimum amount required for oral infection in bumblebees, and reported no significant effect on mortality with this dose [28]
Feeding of 1 × 107 virus particles had a slower infection progression as IAPV was only detectable in the gut at 4 days p.i., while it took until day seven for virus to appear in the other tested body parts
Summary
Managed bees are used worldwide as pollinators to aid food production in open field as well as in greenhouses [1]. Honeybees and bumblebees are the two most commonly used species for Viruses 2015, 7 commercial pollination purposes. Domesticated honeybees are hosts to multiple viruses [2,3,4], and different bumblebee species have been reported to carry viruses [5,6]. Managed bees could act as reservoirs for pathogens, and spillover of pathogens from managed bees toward wild pollinators could disrupt natural host-pathogen interactions [7]. For protozoan parasites from reared bumblebees this phenomena has been studied [8,9,10,11,12], and disturbance of host-pathogen interaction in wild bumblebees by domesticated honeybees could be happening [6,13]. Pathogen eradication in managed bees can already prevent initial spillover events
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