Insects have a highly sensitive sense of smell, allowing them to perform complex behaviors, such as foraging and peer recognition. Their sense of smell is based on the recognition of ligands and is mainly coordinated by odorant-binding proteins (OBPs). In Apis mellifera, behavior can be affected by different pathogens, including deformed wing virus (DWV) and its variants. In particular, it has been shown that variant A of DWV (DWV-A) is capable of altering the ultra-cellular structure associated with olfactory activity. In this study was evaluated olfactory sensitivity and the expression of OBP genes in honey bees inoculated with DWV-A. Electroantennographic analyses (EAG) were carried out to determine the olfactory sensitivity to the essential oils Eucalyptus globulus and Mentha piperita. The expression of nine antenna-specific OBP genes and DWV-A load in inoculated bees was also quantified by qPCR. We observed an inverse relationship between viral load and olfactory sensitivity and the expression of some OBP proteins. Thus, high viral loads reduced olfactory sensitivity to essential oils and the gene expression of the OBP2, OBP5, OBP11, and OBP12 proteins on the antennas of middle- and forager-age bees. These results suggest that DWV-A could have negative effects on the processes of aroma perception by worker bees, affecting their performance in tasks carried out in and outside the colony.
Keywords: DWV-A; OBPs; antennae; honey bees; olfactory responses.