Antiviral immune response reveals host-specific virus infections in natural ant populations.

ABSTRACT: Hosts can carry many viruses in their bodies, but not all of them cause disease. We studied ants as a social host to determine both their overall viral repertoire and the subset of actively infecting viruses across natural populations of three subfamilies: the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile, Dolichoderinae), the invasive garden ant (Lasius neglectus, Formicinae) and the red ant (Myrmica rubra, Myrmicinae). We used a dual sequencing strategy to reconstruct complete virus genomes by RNA-seq and to simultaneously determine the small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) by small RNA sequencing (sRNA-seq), which constitute the host antiviral RNAi immune response. This approach led to the discovery of 41 novel viruses in ants and revealed a host ant-specific RNAi response (21 vs. 22

SUBMITTER: Viljakainen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10060816 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature