An iflavirus found in stink bugs (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) of four different species

Abstract

An analysis of transcriptomes from the antennae of the three South American stink bugs (Euschistus heros, Chinavia ubica, and Dichelops melacanthus) revealed the presence of picorna-like virus genome-length RNAs with high sequence identity to the genome of Halyomorpha halys virus (HhV), originally discovered in the transcriptome of the brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys. Features of the genome, phylogenetic relationships to other viruses, and the appearances of virus-like particles isolated from host stink bugs all confirm that these viruses are iflaviruses and isolates of an undescribed species. Iflavirus RNAs were present at high levels (40%-90% of transcriptome reads) in the stink bug antennal transcriptomes. In whole-insect transcriptomes of H. halys, HhV reads were > 500-fold more abundant in adults than in nymphs. We identified from field population a subject of species E. heros infected by this iflavirus. The results of the analysis suggest that these iflaviruses are able to produce large quantities of their RNAs without causing any obvious pathology to their hosts.

A novel picorna-like virus identified in the cotton boll weevil Anthonomus grandis (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

“…A maximum-likelihood tree was inferred using the Fast-tree method implemented into Geneious 11.1.5 software [17] while the branch support was estimated by a Shimodaira-Hasegawa-like test. According to Silva et al [2015], i aviruses do not form a single clade according to the insect-infected order, suggesting that they did not follow the same evolutionary path as their insect hosts at order level [23,24]. Our results corroborate this observation, where we can see that AgIV-1 is ancestral within a clade with three i aviruses found in lepidopteran hosts (Fig.…”

Biological characterization of Euscelidius variegatus iflavirus 1

“…Although the idea behind the application of entomopathogens as biocontrol agent dates back to the nineteenth century (Metchnikoff, 1880), the use of insect-specific viruses in plant protection is lately gaining attention. Iflaviruses may infect their hosts and transcribe high amounts of RNA without inducing visible symptoms in the infected population (dos Santos et al, 2019) but, for example, infection with an iflavirus increases the susceptibility of Spodoptera exigua larvae to a baculovirus insecticide (Carballo et al, 2017). Interactions such as this among different species in a complex microbiome may explain the lower load of EVV-1 in E. variegatus individuals infected with Flavescence dorée phytoplasma (Abbà et al, 2017).…”

“…The use of next generation sequencing in the last few years allowed the discovery of many novel viruses in arthropods (Dong et al, 2018;dos Santos et al, 2019;O'Brien et al, 2018). In particular, this technology proved crucial for the identification of covert viruses, those that do not cause overtly pathological effects on their hosts (Nouri et al, 2018).…”

“…Among them, iflaviruses (Iflaviridae) form a distinct group in the order Picornavirales, (Valles et al, 2017). Effects of some of these viruses include developmental anomalies (Li et al, 2019) behavioural alterations (Wells et al, 2016), tissue pathologies (Brettell et al, 2017), and premature death (Geng et al, 2017) of the insect host, while others do not cause any evident symptoms (dos Santos et al, 2019;Murakami et al, 2013). Transmission modalities of these viruses have been explored, leading to a multifaceted infection model.…”

Molecular and biological characterization of a bunyavirus infecting the brown planthopper (Nilaparvata lugens)

“…Cross-species replication ability of symbiotic viruses has been commonly reported in insects, such as picorna-like viruses in stink bug and whitefly species [26,27], the deformed wing virus in bumble bee species and the small hive beetle [28,29]. To explore the potential cross-species ability of NLBV in related planthopper species, small brown planthopper (SBPH, Laodelphax striatellus) and white-backed planthopper (WBPH, Sogatella furcifera), two other rice planthopper in the family Delphacidae, were microinjected with crude extracts of NLBV+ BPHs.…”