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Review
. 2022 Aug 25;14(9):1871.
doi: 10.3390/v14091871.

Sacbrood Virus: A Growing Threat to Honeybees and Wild Pollinators

Ruike Wei  1 , Lianfei Cao  2 , Ye Feng  3 , Yanping Chen  4 , Gongwen Chen  1 , Huoqing Zheng  1
Affiliations
Review

Sacbrood Virus: A Growing Threat to Honeybees and Wild Pollinators

Ruike Wei et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Sacbrood virus (SBV) is one of the many viruses that infect both the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera) and the Eastern honeybee (Apis cerana). Recently, the interspecies transmission of SBV has been discovered, especially among wild pollinators. This newly discovered evolutionary occurrence regarding SBV indicates a much wider host range than previously believed, causing further concern about the future sustainability of agriculture and the resilience of ecosystems. Over the past few decades, vast numbers of studies have been undertaken concerning SBV infection in honeybees, and remarkable progress has been made in our understanding of the epidemiology, pathogenesis, transmission, and manifestations of SBV infection in honeybees and other pollinators. Meanwhile, some methods, including Chinese medicine, have been established to control and prevent sacbrood disease in A. cerana in Asian countries. In this review, we summarize the existing knowledge of SBV and address the gaps in the knowledge within the existing literature in the hope of providing future directions for the research and development of management strategies for controlling the spread of this deadly disease.

Keywords: diagnostics; epidemiology; etiology; pathogenesis; prevention; sacbrood virus; transmission.

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Conflict of interest statement

Huoqing Zheng is the guest editor of the special issue “State-of-the-Art Insect Viruses Research in China”.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Sacbrood disease of an Apis cerana larva (photograph by Xiaoqing Li).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Worldwide distribution of sacbrood virus (SBV). The red color indicates the presence of SBV in the respective regions. The green color indicates regions where previous studies have not reported SBV infection. The gray color indicates that data are not available in these regions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Phylogenetic tree of SBV. This tree was constructed based on the polyprotein sequences of 22 AmSBV and 18 AcSBV strains from the NCBI database. The phylogenetic tree was constructed using the maximum likelihood (ML) method and 1000 bootstrap replications. Strains are annotated to the GenBank accession number, virus host, and region of isolation. Am, Apis mellifera; Ac, A. cerana. The tree consisted of two branches, mainly AcSBV and AmSBV strains. Nevertheless, the AcSBV cluster also contained four AmSBV isolates from China, South Korea, and Vietnam.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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