The discovery, distribution, and diversity of DNA viruses associated with Drosophila melanogaster in Europe



Wallace, Megan A, Coffman, Kelsey A, Gilbert, Clement, Ravindran, Sanjana, Albery, Gregory F, Abbott, Jessica, Argyridou, Eliza, Bellosta, Paola, Betancourt, Andrea J ORCID: 0000-0001-9351-1413, Colinet, Herve
et al (show 29 more authors) (2021) The discovery, distribution, and diversity of DNA viruses associated with Drosophila melanogaster in Europe. VIRUS EVOLUTION, 7 (1). veab031-.

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Abstract

<i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> is an important model for antiviral immunity in arthropods, but very few DNA viruses have been described from the family Drosophilidae. This deficiency limits our opportunity to use natural host-pathogen combinations in experimental studies, and may bias our understanding of the <i>Drosophila</i> virome. Here, we report fourteen DNA viruses detected in a metagenomic analysis of 6668 pool-sequenced <i>Drosophila</i>, sampled from forty-seven European locations between 2014 and 2016. These include three new nudiviruses, a new and divergent entomopoxvirus, a virus related to Leptopilina boulardi filamentous virus, and a virus related to Musca domestica salivary gland hypertrophy virus. We also find an endogenous genomic copy of galbut virus, a double-stranded RNA partitivirus, segregating at very low frequency. Remarkably, we find that Drosophila Vesanto virus, a small DNA virus previously described as a bidnavirus, may be composed of up to twelve segments and thus represent a new lineage of segmented DNA viruses. Two of the DNA viruses, Drosophila Kallithea nudivirus and Drosophila Vesanto virus are relatively common, found in 2 per cent or more of wild flies. The others are rare, with many likely to be represented by a single infected fly. We find that virus prevalence in Europe reflects the prevalence seen in publicly available datasets, with Drosophila Kallithea nudivirus and Drosophila Vesanto virus the only ones commonly detectable in public data from wild-caught flies and large population cages, and the other viruses being rare or absent. These analyses suggest that DNA viruses are at lower prevalence than RNA viruses in <i>D.melanogaster</i>, and may be less likely to persist in laboratory cultures. Our findings go some way to redressing an earlier bias toward RNA virus studies in <i>Drosophila</i>, and lay the foundation needed to harness the power of <i>Drosophila</i> as a model system for the study of DNA viruses.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: DNA virus, endogenous viral element, Drosophila, nudivirus, galbut virus, filamentous virus, adintovirus, densovirus, bidnavirus
Divisions: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 16 Jun 2021 13:06
Last Modified: 08 Mar 2023 14:41
DOI: 10.1093/ve/veab031
Open Access URL: https://academic.oup.com/ve/advance-article/doi/10...
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3126585