Transmission of Diverse Variants of Strawberry Viruses Is Governed by a Vector Species

Viruses. 2022 Jun 23;14(7):1362. doi: 10.3390/v14071362.

Abstract

Advances in high-throughput sequencing methods have boosted the discovery of multistrain viral infections in diverse plant systems. This phenomenon appears to be pervasive for certain viral species. However, our knowledge of the transmission aspects leading to the establishment of such mixed infections is limited. Recently, we reported a mixed infection of a single strawberry plant with strawberry mottle virus (SMoV), strawberry crinkle virus (SCV) and strawberry virus 1 (StrV-1). While SCV and StrV-1 are represented by two and three molecular variants, respectively, SmoV has three different RNA1 and RNA2 segments. In this study, we focus on virus acquisition by individual adult aphids of the Aphis gossypii, Aphis forbesi and Chaetosiphon fragaefolii species. Single-aphid transmission trials are performed under experimental conditions. Both different viruses and individual virus strains show varying performances in single aphid acquisition. The obtained data suggests that numerous individual transmission events lead to the establishment of multistrain infections. These data will be important for the development of epidemiological models in plant virology.

Keywords: aphid transmission; multiple infections; plant virus; strawberry virus.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Aphids*
  • Fragaria*
  • Plant Diseases
  • Rhabdoviridae* / genetics
  • Secoviridae*
  • Virus Diseases*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Czech Science Foundation, grant number 19-22187Y and institutional support by Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (RVO60077344). Computational resources were supplied by the project “e-Infrastruktura CZ” (e-INFRA CZ LM2018140) supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. Work in Valencia was funded by grant PID2019-103998GB-I00 (Spain’s Agencia Estatal de Investigación—FEDER). The APC was funded by Czech Science Foundation, grant number 19-22187Y.