Meta-analysis of honey bee neurogenomic response links Deformed wing virus type A to precocious behavioral maturation.

ABSTRACT: Crop pollination by the western honey bee Apis mellifera is vital to agriculture but threatened by alarmingly high levels of colony mortality, especially in Europe and North America. Colony loss is due, in part, to the high viral loads of Deformed wing virus (DWV), transmitted by the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, especially throughout the overwintering period of a honey bee colony. Covert DWV infection is commonplace and has been causally linked to precocious foraging, which itself has been linked to colony loss. Taking advantage of four brain transcriptome studies that unexpectedly revealed evidence of covert DWV-A infection, we set out to explore whether this effect is due to DWV-A mimicking naturally occurring changes in brain gene expression that are associated with behavioral

SUBMITTER: Traniello IM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7033282 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature