Hymenoptera associated eukaryotic virome lacks host specificity

Abstract

Recent advancements in sequencing technologies and metagenomic studies have increased the knowledge of the virosphere associated with honey bees tremendously. In this study, viral-like particle enrichment and deep sequencing was deployed to detect viral communities in managed Belgian honey bees. A substantial number of previously undescribed divergent virus genomes was detected, including a rhabdovirus and a recombinant virus possessing a divergent Lake Sinai Virus capsid and a Hepe-like polymerase. Furthermore, screening > 5,000 public sequencing datasets for the retrieved set of viral genomes revealed an additional plethora of undetected, divergent viruses present in a wide range of Hymenoptera species. The unexpected high number of shared viral genomes within the Apidae family and across different families within the order Hymenoptera suggests that many of these viruses are highly promiscuous, that virus sharing within and between Hymenoptera families occurs frequently, and that the concept of species-specific viral taxa inside the Hymenoptera should be revisited. In particular, this estimation implies that sharing of several viral species, thought to be specific for bees, across other eukaryotic taxa is rampant. This study provides important insights on the host taxonomical breadth of some of the known “bee viruses” and might have important implications on strategies to combat viruses that are relevant to pollinators.

The Virome of Healthy Honey Bee Colonies: Ubiquitous Occurrence of Known and New Viruses in Bee Populations

“…Prompted by these results, we decided to investigate if this difference was also discernible in other studies of non-Australian viromes. We used public NGS data from Belgium ( 34 ); Israel ( 30 ); South Africa, The Netherlands, and Tonga ( 29 ); and the United States, Central America, Europe, Kenya, India, and New Zealand ( 26 ). This allowed us to compare the bee populations where V. destructor is present (most of the world) with Varroa- naive populations ( 16 ).…”

Molecular Detection and Differentiation of Arthropod, Fungal, Protozoan, Bacterial and Viral Pathogens of Honeybees

“…Although they were classified as honeybee viruses, many of them infect a wide variety of insect hosts. This is particularly important under the perspective of the pollinator network, since the presence of multi-host pathogens favors interspecies virus transmission [ 413 ].…”

Metatranscriptome Analysis of Sympatric Bee Species Identifies Bee Virus Variants and a New Virus, Andrena-Associated Bee Virus-1

“…Evidence indicating that virologists, entomologists, and ecologists are in the initial phases of characterizing the bee-associated virome is provided in a recent study that sequenced virus-augmented samples from honey bees obtained as part of a large-scale sampling effort in Belgium, coupled with in-depth analyses of existing sequence data [97]. The study by Deboutte et al not only resulted in the discovery of new virus-like sequences, virus strains, and potential recombinant viruses in honey bees, it also included bioinformatic analyses of over 5000 sequence datasets, which revealed that a high number of viral genomes were common to numerous Apidae family members, as well as widely distributed across different families within the order Hymenoptera [97].…”

“…Evidence indicating that virologists, entomologists, and ecologists are in the initial phases of characterizing the bee-associated virome is provided in a recent study that sequenced virus-augmented samples from honey bees obtained as part of a large-scale sampling effort in Belgium, coupled with in-depth analyses of existing sequence data [97]. The study by Deboutte et al not only resulted in the discovery of new virus-like sequences, virus strains, and potential recombinant viruses in honey bees, it also included bioinformatic analyses of over 5000 sequence datasets, which revealed that a high number of viral genomes were common to numerous Apidae family members, as well as widely distributed across different families within the order Hymenoptera [97]. These results, coupled with smaller-scale studies documenting virus replication in species beyond that of the host(s) from which particular viruses were discovered, suggest that many Hymenopteran viruses, and likely insect viruses in general, infect a wide range of species, and thus the concepts of species-specific viruses and paradigm of "spillover" from honey bees to other bee species should be reevaluated [97].…”