Complete nucleotide sequence of Kashmir bee virus and comparison with acute bee paralysis virus

Abstract

The complete nucleotide sequence of a novel virus is presented here together with serological evidence that it belongs to Kashmir bee virus (KBV). Analysis reveals that KBV is a cricket paralysis-like virus (family Dicistroviridae: genus Cripavirus), with a non-structural polyprotein open reading frame in the 59 portion of the genome separated by an intergenic region from a structural polyprotein open reading frame in the 39 part of the genome. The genome also has a polyadenylated tail at the 39 terminus. KBV is one of several related viruses that also includes acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV). Although KBV and ABPV are about 70 % identical over the entire genome, there are considerable differences between them in significant areas of the genome, such as the 59 non-translated region (42 % nucleotide identity), between the helicase and 3C-protease domains of the non-structural polyprotein (57 % amino acid identity) and in a 90 aa stretch of the structural polyprotein (33 % amino acid identity). Phylogenetic analyses show that KBV and ABPV isolates fall into clearly separated clades with moderate evolutionary distance between them. Whether these genomic and evolutionary differences are sufficient to classify KBV and ABPV as separate species remains to be determined. INTRODUCTIONKashmir bee virus (KBV) is a potentially lethal virus of honeybees that has recently come to prominence as one of several viruses closely associated with colony collapse because of infestation with varroa mites (Ball & Bailey, 1997). Like most honeybee viruses, KBV is thought to persist as an inapparent infection within the bee community, until stress or an alternative vector (such as varroa) causes it to become epidemic and lethal. The geographical and host origins of KBV are obscure. It was discovered in 1974 as a contaminant in preparations of Apis iridescent virus from the Asian hive bee (Apis cerana) that multiplied to high titres when injected or fed to adult Apis mellifera bees (Bailey & Woods, 1977). Although it was suspected that KBV originated in A. cerana and SE Asia, the detection of KBV, or its serological relatives, in natural populations of A. mellifera from around the world (Ball & Bailey, 1997;Allen & Ball, 1995), as well as A. cerana from India (Bailey & Woods, 1977;Bailey et al., 1979), bumblebees (Bombus spp.) from New Zealand and European wasps (Vespula germanica) from Australia (Anderson, 1991) has made this difficult to prove.KBV is serologically and biologically closely related to acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV; Allen & Ball, 1995;Anderson, 1991). Like KBV it was discovered as a contaminant, during transmission studies of chronic bee paralysis virus (Bailey et al., 1963) and is extremely lethal to adults and larvae, both by injection and in larger doses by feeding (Bailey et al., 1963;Nordstrom, 2000). It is common in seemingly normal, healthy colonies and has been heavily implicated in varroainduced colony losses, primarily in Europe in the 1980s (Ball, 1985;Allen et al., 1986;Ball & Allen, 1988;Bailey & Ball, 1991...

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

“…This region was chosen since it is considered to be a conserved genomic region within the picorna-like virus superfamily (Culley et al, 2003). We intended to develop an assay that would detect all ABPV strains while being species specific with particular concern about the distinction between KBV and ABPV, as both viruses share about 70% identity at the nucleic acid level (De Miranda et al, 2004).…”

Characterization of Cell Lines Developed From the Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter, Homalodisca Coagulata (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae)

“…Analysis (Johnson and Christian 1998), cricket paralysis virus (CrPV) (Koonin and Gorbalenya 1992), Triatoma virus (TrV) (Czibener et al 2000), Plautia stali virus (PSIV) (Sasaki et al 1998), Himetobi P virus (HiPV) (Nakashima et al 1999), acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) , Kashmir bee virus (KBV) ( De Miranda et al 2004), black queen cell virus (BQCV) , Rhopalosiphum padi virus (RhPV) (Moon et al 1998). Predicted cleavage sites are highlighted in yellow, areas of identity in grey shading, (*) denotes conserved amino acids.…”

“…HoCV-1 had the highest matching BLASTP score (Table 1.) with Himetobi P virus, HiPV, which was discovered in planthoppers (Toriyama, et al 1992 (Johnson and Christian 1998), cricket paralysis virus (CrPV) (Koonin and Gorbalenya 1992), Triatoma virus (TrV) (Czibener et al 2000), Plautia stali virus (PSIV) (Sasaki et al 1998), Himetobi P virus (HiPV) (Nakashima et al 1999), black queen cell virus (BQCV) , acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV) , Kashmir bee virus (KBV) ( De Miranda et al 2004), Rhopalosiphum padi virus (RhPV) (Moon et al 1998). Phylogenetic trees were constructed via the neighbor-joining method using PAUP* version 4.0 (Swofford 2003).…”

Positive-Strand RNA Viruses Infecting the Red Imported Fire Ant,Solenopsis invicta

“…Amino acid residues G 541 , S 543 , and P 545 at the VP4/VP1 cleavage site and Q 914 at the VP1/VP3 cleavage site were conserved. These sites exhibited highest identities with Kashmir bee virus (KBV), Acute bee paralysis virus (ABPV), and Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV), all of which infect honey bees [47,48].…”