>Signatures of adaptive decreased virulence of deformed wing virus in an isolated population of wild honeybees (Apis mellifera).

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2023.1965

Finally had a chance to read this study - interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing. 

As I went through, the observation that was most intriguing to me was:

'Indeed, honeybee host genotype has been an important factor in DWV infection studies [73,78,95], and our study further uncovers how DWV genotype, even within master variant groups, can differ in infection severity. Future studies examining local adaptation [96] and genotype-by-genotype interactions [97,98] will reveal fundamental characteristics of host–pathogen dynamics and avenues for supporting honeybee health.'

Following the rabbit hole for the referenced studies yielded some interesting stuff I hadn't read before:

'Comparison of these studies [linked below] also indicates that more study of isolated viral variants rather than the naturally occurring combination of variants from overtly symptomatic adults is needed to parse out the full physiological impacts of each variant. More broadly, this research continues to highlight the importance of considering the combination of host genotype and pathogen genotype in epidemiological studies.'

In these companion studies, they found that different genetic stocks of honey bees differed in their response to different DWV variants and infection routes with each stock alternately showing differential symptomatic responses to the each of the variants and/or infection routes:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.909392/full
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/finsc.2021.756690/full

A second study suggests that there is a statistically measurable difference in viral tolerance between stocks (which seems to comport well with the studies above). Most interesting is that unselected Italian stock performed better than either Russian or Pol-Line stock at managing viral propagation and yet fared the worst in terms of expression of symptoms:

https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60500500/PDFFiles/501-600/553-Khongphinitbunjong--Responses%20of%20Varro-resistant.pdf



 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html