The honey bee is one of the most important pollinators in the agricultural system and is responsible for pollinating a third of all food we eat. Sacbrood virus (SBV) is a member of the virus family Iflaviridae and affects honey bee larvae and causes particularly devastating disease in the Asian honey bees, Apis cerana. Chinese Sacbrood virus (CSBV) is a geographic strain of SBV identified in China and has resulted in mass death of honey bees in China in recent years. However, the molecular mechanism underlying SBV infection in the Asian honey bee has remained unelucidated. In this present study, we employed high throughput next-generation sequencing technology to study the host transcriptional responses to CSBV infection in A. cerana larvae, and were able to identify genome-wide differentially expressed genes associated with the viral infection. Our study identified 2,534 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) involved in host innate immunity including Toll and immune deficiency (IMD) pathways, RNA interference (RNAi) pathway, endocytosis, etc. Notably, the expression of genes encoding antimicrobial peptides (abaecin, apidaecin, hymenoptaecin, and defensin) and core components of RNAi such as Dicer-like and Ago2 were found to be significantly upregulated in CSBV infected larvae. Most importantly, the expression of Sirtuin target genes, a family of signaling proteins involved in metabolic regulation, apoptosis, and intracellular signaling was found to be changed, providing the first evidence of the involvement of Sirtuin signaling pathway in insects’ immune response to a virus infection. The results obtained from this study provide novel insights into the molecular mechanism and immune responses involved in CSBV infection, which in turn will contribute to the development of diagnostics and treatment for the diseases in honey bees.

Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) is an essential vegetable crop with good nutritional significance. Insect pests are the major threat for poor production of the okra crop. Thrips of vegetable crops are known to be serious pests on a wide range of fruit, vegetable, flower, and agronomic crops. The present field study was carried out to know the efficacy of different insecticides (acetamiprid 19% weightable water (ww), lambda 25% ww, colarphipare 32% ww, lambda 2.5% ww and abamectin 1.3% ww) against Thrips, Thrips tabaci (Lindeman) on okra crop during the year 2019, and observations against T. tabaci (Lindeman) were recorded after 24 hrs, 48 hrs, 72 hrs and 07 days of each spray in all the treatments. The pre-treatment count of thrips on okra was non-significant (P > 0.05); while the evaluated efficacy of different insecticides against thrips was significant (P < 0.01). It was noted that all the insecticides showed their highest efficacy after 7 days of spray and acetamiprid 19% weightable water (ww) was more efficient to combat the T. tabaci as compared to other pesticides that produced field efficacy of 73.92 and 74.91% against thrips after 7 days of 1st and 2nd spray respectively. Abamectin, 1.3% ww, was reasonably successful, yielding 53.81 and 56.66% field efficacy against T. tabaci (Lindeman) after 7 days of first and second spray. Also, moderately effective was colarphipare 32% ww, which developed field effectiveness of 56.41 and 61.49% against T. tabaci (Lindeman) after 7 days of first and second spray, respectively.