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. 2019 Nov 8;11(11):1041.
doi: 10.3390/v11111041.

Viruses in the Invasive Hornet Vespa velutina

Anne Dalmon  1   2 , Philippe Gayral  3 , Damien Decante  2   4 , Christophe Klopp  5 , Diane Bigot  3 , Maxime Thomasson  1 , Elisabeth A Herniou  3 , Cédric Alaux  1   2 , Yves Le Conte  1   2
Affiliations

Viruses in the Invasive Hornet Vespa velutina

Anne Dalmon et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

The Asian yellow-legged hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax, a major predator of honeybees, is spreading in Europe in part due to a lack of efficient control methods. In this study, as a first step to identify biological control agents, we characterized viral RNA sequences present in asymptomatic or symptomatic hornets. Among 19 detected viruses, the honey bee virus Deformed wing virus-B was predominant in all the samples, particularly in muscles from the symptomatic hornet, suggesting a putative cause of the deformed wing symptom. Interestingly, two new viruses closely related to Acyrthosiphon pisumvirus and Himetobi Pvirus and viruses typically associated with honey bees, Acute bee paralysis virus and Black queen cell virus, were detected in the brain and muscles, and may correspond to the circulation and possible replication forms of these viruses in the hornet. Aphid lethal paralysis virus, Bee Macula-like virus, and Moku virus, which are known to infect honey bees, were also identified in the gut virus metagenome of hornets. Therefore, our study underlined the urgent need to study the host range of these newly discovered viruses in hornets to determine whether they represent a new threat for honey bees or a hope for the biocontrol of V. velutina.

Keywords: ABPV; ALPV; BQCV; BeeMLV; DWV; KBV; Vespidae; honey bee viruses; invasive species; new viruses.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Dorsal view of deformed wings in hornet (sample 159+ naturally curled up by freezing).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Split tree of Deformed wing virus from 23 nucleotide sequences. All ambiguous positions were removed for each sequence pair (pairwise deletion option). There was a total of 7560 positions from the 3’ end of the DWV genome in the final dataset. GenBank accession numbers and samples 140C (brain), 140M and 159M (muscle) and 144I (intestine) are associated with the DWV strain. Contigs from the intestine sample assigned as DWV-C were too short to be included.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Maximum likelihood phylogeny of the replicase genes of (a) ALPV and Vespa velutina associated triato-like virus (372 aa, LG+I+G+F model), and (b) Moku virus and Vespa velutina associated ifla-like virus (338 aa, LG+I+G+F model) detected in hornets. The complete virus names are shown in Table S2.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic representation, coverage and annotation of the complete or partial genomes of insect RNA viruses found in hornets. (a–c) Vespa velutina associated acypi-like virus; (d–e) Vespa velutina associated triato-like virus and (f–g) Vespa velutina associated permutotetra-like virus 1 and 2.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Maximum likelihood amino acid replicase phylogeny of (a) Vespa velutina associated acypi-like virus (277 aa, RtREV +G+I+Fmodel), and (b) Vespa velutina associated permutotetra-like virus 1 and 2 (219 aa, LG+G model). GenBank accessions are shown in Table S2.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Schematic representation, coverage and annotation of complete or partial genomes of insect RNA viruses found in hornets. (a–d): Vespa velutina associated partiti-like virus 1-4, (e): Vespa velutina associated ifla-like virus, (f): Vespa velutina associated nora-like virus, (g): Vespa velutina associated Menton virus.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Maximum likelihood amino acid replicase phylogeny of Vespa velutina associated partiti-like viruses 1–4 (384 aa, LG+I+G+F model). GenBank accessions are in Table S2.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Maximum likelihood amino acid replicase phylogeny of (a) Vespa velutina associated nora-like virus (54 aa, LG+G model), (b) Vespa velutina associated Menton virus (162 aa, LG+G model). GenBank accessions are shown in Table S2.
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