Deformed wing virus of honey bees is inactivated by cold plasma ionized hydrogen peroxide

Steven C Cook; Eugene V Ryabov; Christian Becker; Curtis W Rogers; Francisco Posada-Florez; Jay D Evans; Yan Ping Chen

doi:10.3389/finsc.2023.1216291

Deformed wing virus of honey bees is inactivated by cold plasma ionized hydrogen peroxide

Front Insect Sci. 2023 Aug 2:3:1216291. doi: 10.3389/finsc.2023.1216291. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Steven C Cook¹, Eugene V Ryabov^{1

2}, Christian Becker³, Curtis W Rogers¹, Francisco Posada-Florez¹, Jay D Evans¹, Yan Ping Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research (USDA-ARS) Service, Bee Research Laboratory, Beltsville, MD, United States.
² Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States.
³ Arkema, Inc., King of Prussia, PA, United States.

Abstract

Deformed wing virus (DWV) is a widespread pathogen of Apis mellifera honey bees, and is considered a major causative factor for the collapse of infected honey bee colonies. DWV can be horizontally transmitted among bees through various oral routes, including via food sharing and by interactions of bees with viral-contaminated solid hive substrates. Cold plasma ionized hydrogen peroxide (iHP) is used extensively by the food production, processing and medical industries to clean surfaces of microbial contaminants. In this study, we investigated the use of iHP to inactivate DWV particles in situ on a solid substrate. iHP-treated DWV sources were ~10⁵-fold less infectious when injected into naïve honey bee pupae compared to DWV receiving no iHP treatment, matching injected controls containing no DWV. iHP treatment also greatly reduced the incidence of overt DWV infections (i.e., pupae having >10⁹ copies of DWV). The level of DWV inactivation achieved with iHP treatment was higher than other means of viral inactivation such as gamma irradiation, and iHP treatment is likely simpler and safer. Treatment of DWV contaminated hive substrates with iHP, even with honey bees present, may be an effective way to decrease the impacts of DWV infection on honey bees.

Keywords: Apis mellifera; DWV; IHP; Varroa destructor; infectivity.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by external funding from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grants 2017-06481 (JDE, YPC and EVR) and 2021-67013-33560 (SCC, EVR and YPC), and a Material Transfer and Research Agreement (#68816) between Arkema, Inc. and USDA. The latter funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit for publication. All authors declare no other competing interests.