Identification of Immune Response to Sacbrood Virus Infection in Apis cerana Under Natural Condition

Yanchun Deng; Hongxia Zhao; Shuo Shen; Sa Yang; Dahe Yang; Shuai Deng; Chunsheng Hou

doi:10.3389/fgene.2020.587509

Identification of Immune Response to Sacbrood Virus Infection in Apis cerana Under Natural Condition

Front Genet. 2020 Oct 26:11:587509. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2020.587509. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yanchun Deng^{1

2

3}, Hongxia Zhao⁴, Shuo Shen⁵, Sa Yang^{1

2}, Dahe Yang^{1

2}, Shuai Deng^{1

2}, Chunsheng Hou^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
² Key Laboratory of Pollinating Insect Biology, Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs, Beijing, China.
³ Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ Guangdong Key Laboratory of Animal Conservation and Resource Utilization, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Guangdong Institute of Applied Biological Resources, Guangdong Academy of Science, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Qinghai Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences), Qinghai University, Xining, China.

Abstract

Chinese sacbrood virus (CSBV) is a serious threat to eastern honeybees (Apis cerana), especially larvae. However, the pathological mechanism of this deadly disease remains unclear. Here, we employed mRNA and small RNA (sRNA) transcriptome approach to investigate the microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) expression changes of A. cerana larvae infected with CSBV under natural condition. We found that serine proteases involved in immune response were down-regulated, while the expression of siRNAs targeted to serine proteases were up-regulated. In addition, CSBV infection also affected the expression of larvae cuticle proteins such as larval cuticle proteins A1A and A3A, resulting in increased susceptibility to CSBV infection. Together, our results provide insights into sRNAs that they are likely to be involved in regulating honeybee immune response.

Keywords: Apis cerana; Chinese sacbrood virus; immune response; serine protease; siRNA; transcriptome.