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Epidemiology and Taxonomy of Honey Bee Viruses in England and Wales
Abstract and Figures
Honey bees play a fundamental role in agriculture producing wealth in terms of hive products (honey, royal jelly, pollen, wax, and propolis) and by increasing the productivity of important plant species through pollination. Moreover, the pollination of natural plants, at the base of the food chain for many wild animals, guarantee their survival . So for the role that honey bees have in nature and for their economical importance in agriculture, their diseases are of paramount importance. Unfortunately, in the last few years a large-scale colony loss called Colony Collapse Disorder syndrome reduced the overall number of hives in different countries. However, the cause of this is still not clear and for this reason the Department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs (DEFRA) funded this research in order to gain a better knowledge of honey bee virus epidemiology and taxonomy in England and Wales.
A National level sampling plan was designed to be statistically representative of the honey bee population present in England and Wales. In order to detect viruses at low prevalence level, a new viral RNA extraction method based on virus precipitation was developed and the viral RNAs obtained were screened for eight honey bee viruses using Real Time rt-PCR.
Once information about the prevalence and the distribution of the eight honey bee viruses was obtained, a further characterisation of Deformed wing virus DWV and Black queen cell virus BQCV was performed using classic rt-PCR coupled with Sanger sequencing, and phylogenetic trees were obtained using bioinformatic tools. The viruses, grouped according to their nucleotide similarity, were reported on a geographically referenced map in order to highlight the distribution of the variants found in England and Wales.
The results obtained in this thesis have resulted in a better knowledge of the epidemiology and taxonomy of honey bee viruses, determination of the full sequence of Slow paralysis virus SBPV for the first time, and a new virus RNA extraction method that can be exploited in other research fields.
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... La sintomatología observada en las abejas recolectas en el apiario, ubicado en el cantón de Puriscal, es característica del virus DWV y fue congruente con el virus identificado. DWV provoca una reducción en el tamaño del cuerpo y de las alas (las cuales se observan arrugadas y de menor tamaño), así como la decoloración en las abejas adultas (Cordoni 2011). La infección de DWV se detecta en la fase inmadura (huevos, larvas y pupas); también en la fase adulta de la abeja (Bailey & Ball 1991;Ball & Bailey 1997;Chen & Siede 2007). ...
Recibido: 4 de diciembre de 2015. Corregido: 25 de enero de 2016. Aceptado: 23 de febrero de 2016. Resumen: Tras denuncias de apicultores, por la presencia de abejas Apis mellifera scutellata enfermas en colmenas localizadas en la región central sur de la provincia de San José, Costa Rica, se recolectó muestras de abejas adultas vivas, con sintomatología presuntiva de infección viral. Las muestras fueron extraídas y procesadas en el laboratorio. A partir de estas muestras, se diagnosticó, por primera vez en Costa Rica, la presencia del virus de la Celda Real Negra (BQCV) y el virus de la Parálisis Aguda (ABPV), en los cantones de: Turrubares, distrito San Pedro; Tarrazú, distrito San Marcos, respectivamente. Además, se confirmó, por PCR, la presencia del virus de las Alas Deformes (DWV) en el país. La información, acerca de las enfermedades virales en Costa Rica, es todavía escasa, por lo cual, la implementación de estas metodologías abre la posibilidad de ofrecer, a los apicultores de este país, un diagnóstico rápido, específico y sensible. La puesta a punto de estas técnicas, además, podría ser el inicio para la realización de investigaciones con el fin de determinar la prevalencia de virus en las colmenas costarricenses, así como posibles factores de riesgo asociados a estas infecciones.
The aim of this study was to analyze the information on the taxonomy of bee viruses in order to help the reader to navigate throughout this topic. Classification of bee viruses is a changing system. The best known bee viruses belong to the Dicistroviridae and Iflaviridae (Picornavirales; ssRNA +) families. Taxa from the Baculoviridae, Iridoviridae and Poxviridae families should be also considered as potential honeybee pathogens. English re-searchers have informed about 18 “important bee viruses.” 21 different apian virus taxa were blamed, among others, for honeybee losses in US apiaries, including 10 virus taxa considered as the most pathogenic. One of the most comprehensive descriptions of the known bee virus taxa has been provided in the materials of the Europe-an COLOSS project. Detailed data from all the above sources were shown in this review. We also analyzed the possibilities of the appearance of some honeybee-parasite viruses, as well as other insect viruses and plant virus-es in honeybees. A separate table provides information about the additional publications on the most important taxa of the apian viruses. The crucial role of V. destructor infestation for increased risk of viral infections and, therefore, the urgent need of research on apian virology and on ways of increasing of the honeybee immuni-ty/resistance has been indicated.
Five viruses were detected in honeybee (Apis mellifera) colonies of primarily Eastern Australian origin. These were sac-brood virus (SBV), black queen-cell virus (BQCV), chronic bee-paralysis virus (CBPV), Kashmir bee virus (KBV) and cloudy-wing virus (CWV). The presence of CBPV and SBV could be associated with specific clinical signs whereas BQCV, KBV and CWV could not. SBV was the most common virus encountered and showed an obvious seasonal fluctuation of infection. KBV showed a peak of infection during one year but BQCV and CWV did not show an obvious seasonal fluctuation of infection.
This chapter focuses on the microbial systematics based on electrophoretic whole-cell protein patterns. It can be estimated that some one to two thousand genes in the prokaryote genome are expressed as proteins at one time in the microbial cell. This estimate is partly based on the number of proteins separated by two dimensional polyacrylamide electrophoresis (2D PAGE) from Escherichia coli. This is currently the highest-resolution technique for the separation of proteins utilizing separation by isoelectric point and then by molecular size to give a pattern of protein spots distributed over a gel. It is apparent that electrophoretic methods for the description of all the proteins in the cell used comparatively would have wide application in microbial taxonomy, identification and typing.