Diversity and evolution of Sinaivirus and related viruses in honeybees and wild hymenoptera
Diane Bigot  1@  , Philippe Gayral  2@  , Anne Dalmon  3@  , Nicolas Galtier  4@  , Elisabeth Herniou  1@  
1 : Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l'Insecte  (IRBI)
CNRS : UMR7261, Université François Rabelais - Tours
Avenue Monge 37200 Tours -  France
2 : Institut de recherche sur la biologie de l'insecte  (IRBI)  -  Website
CNRS : UMR7261, Université François Rabelais - Tours
Av Monge 37200 TOURS -  France
3 : INRA PACA, Abeilles et environnement
Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) : UR406
Site Agroparc - Domaine St Paul 228, Route de l'aérodrome CS40509 84914 Avignon Cedex 9 -  France
4 : Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier  (ISEM)
Université Montpellier II - Sciences et Techniques du Languedoc, CNRS : UMR5554
Place E bataillon, Montpellier 34000 -  France

By providing pollination services, bees are among the most important insects, both ecologically and economically. In this study, we used next generation sequencing technologies to discover and study new insect viruses, potentially harmful for bees. The initial sampling included 30 wild ants (6 species from genus Messor) and 13 wild bees (3 species from genus Halictus). Individual transcriptomes were sequenced using Illumina technology. A bioinformatic pipeline was developed and allowed transcriptome assembly, protein homology detection with known viruses. Five viral genomes closely related to Lake Sinaï Virus ((Sinaivirus, new genus proposed to ICTV) were discovered in wild ants and bees. After sequence alignments with other known viruses, Maximum Likelihood phylogenies showed that virus found in ants were closely-related to the honeybees infecting LSV-1 and 2. In contrast, viruses found in wild bees were not included in the Sinaivirus clade and may correspond to a new viral genus. This species was termed Halictus scabiosae Associated Virus. To build a more exhaustive phylogeny of Sinaiviruses, we made a second sampling targeting French and Italian honeybees. Total RNA extraction, RT-PCR of the ORF1/RDRP region and Sanger sequencing were used to detect new Sinaivirus sequences. The phylogeny was built from the 42 known Sinaivirus sequences, along with 19 new sequences obtained from this study. This analysis revealed the great diversity of the Sinaivirus genus, and allowed us to build a robust phylogenetic framework for testing hypothesis of virus transfers between honeybees and wild hymenoptera.


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