A real-time PCR based survey on acute bee paralysis virus in German bee colonies

Abstract

-The significance of Acute Bee Paralysis Virus (ABPV) for the overwintering capacity of honeybee colonies was studied under field conditions. A case-control study of samples collected in Germany from 2004 to 2006 was performed. Successfully wintering colonies (control) were compared with winter fatalities (cases), using a binary logistic regression model that focused on the pre-winter ABPV burden as the explanatory variable. To quantify the ABPV burden a SYBR Green based real time PCR protocol was developed. An ABPV-specific primer pair hybridising to the RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase region was used. The assay proved to be ABPV specific and reproducible. ABPV infection was more often observed in colonies that did not survive the winter. In addition, winter fatalities showed higher ABPV burden than surviving colonies. Our findings provide support for a strong and presumably causal relationship between winter mortality, Varroa destructor and ABPV.Apis mellifera /acute bee paralysis virus / real time PCR / relevance / viral load / winter mortality / Varroa destructor

A survey of deformed wing virus and acute bee paralysis virus in honey bee colonies from serbia using real-time RT-PCR

“…The results reported by Bailey et al [4], Tentcheva et al [12], Gauthier et al [6] and Runckel et al [51] show that ABPV is known to persist in apparently healthy colonies. The proportion of 61.8% samples positive to ABPV found in this study is in accordance with the estimates obtained in France (58%) [12], Austria (68%) [13], Hungary (37%) [15], Germany (73%) [33] and Slovenia (40%) [47], but disagrees with fi ndings of researchers in Denmark (10.56%) [38], China (6%) [18], South Korea (0%) [52] and Uruguay (9%) [50]. High prevalence of ABPV in Serbian samples could also be explained by the mite-virus relationship, sampling period and apitechnical measures mentioned earlier.…”

“…Several RT-PCR assays [6,12,13,55] or non-specifi c SybrGreen real-time RT-PCR [33,37,56] have been designed for the purpose of the detection of DWV and ABPV. However, only few probe-based TaqMan real-time RT-PCR protocols have been published for DWV and ABPV [14,39].…”

“…Due to rapid progression from paralysis to death in individual bees, effects of covert ABPV infections, including trembling and inability to fl y, are rarely visible at colony level [16]. Two surveys conducted in Germany [3,33] revealed a signifi cant relation between ABPV infection in autumn and colony mortality in the following winter season. Since ABPV can frequently be detected in bees from both asymptomatic and collapsing colonies [12,13,18], it is diffi cult to defi ne the infl uence of ABPV infection on colony mortality.…”

Horizontal transmission of deformed wing virus: pathological consequences in adult bees (Apis mellifera) depend on the transmission route

“…From these studies it became more and more evident that the key players in most of the 'inexplicable' colony losses are pathogens (Ratnieks & Carreck, 2010). Especially, the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor in concert with certain pathogenic bee viruses played a major role in the observed colony collapses (Cox-Foster et al, 2007;Genersch et al, 2010; Guzmán-Novoa et al, 2010;Highfield et al, 2009;Siede et al, 2008;vanEngelsdorp, 2008;vanEngelsdorp et al, 2009).…”

“…From these studies it became more and more evident that the key players in most of the 'inexplicable' colony losses are pathogens (Ratnieks & Carreck, 2010). Especially, the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor in concert with certain pathogenic bee viruses played a major role in the observed colony collapses (Cox-Foster et al, 2007;Genersch et al, 2010; Guzmán-Novoa et al, 2010;Highfield et al, 2009;Siede et al, 2008;vanEngelsdorp, 2008;vanEngelsdorp et al, 2009).One of the viruses heavily implicated in colony losses is Deformed wing virus (DWV), a plus-stranded RNA virus belonging to the genus Iflaviridae (Lanzi et al, 2006). DWV normally causes covert infections in honeybees (de Miranda & Fries, 2008;Hails et al, 2008;Yue et al, 2007).…”