The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Rehovot, Israel.
PLoS Pathog. 2012 Dec;8(12):e1003035. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1003035. Epub 2012 Dec 20.
The mite Varroa destructor is an obligatory ectoparasite of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) and is one of the major threats to apiculture worldwide. We previously reported that honey bees fed on double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) with a sequence homologous to that of the Israeli acute paralysis virus are protected from the viral disease. Here we show that dsRNA ingested by bees is transferred to the Varroa mite and from mite on to a parasitized bee. This cross-species, reciprocal exchange of dsRNA between bee and Varroa engendered targeted gene silencing in the latter, and resulted in an over 60% decrease in the mite population. Thus, transfer of gene-silencing-triggering molecules between this invertebrate host and its ectoparasite could lead to a conceptually novel approach to Varroa control.
壁虱 Varroa destructor 是蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）的一种强制性外寄生虫，是全世界养蜂业的主要威胁之一。我们之前曾报道过，吸食与以色列急性麻痹病毒同源的双链 RNA（dsRNA）的蜜蜂可以免受病毒病的侵害。在这里，我们表明，蜜蜂摄入的 dsRNA 被转移到壁虱身上，然后从壁虱身上转移到被寄生的蜜蜂身上。这种种间 dsRNA 的交叉交换在后者中引发了靶向基因沉默，并导致螨虫数量减少了 60%以上。因此，这种无脊椎动物宿主与其外寄生虫之间基因沉默触发分子的转移可能会导致一种控制壁虱的新概念方法。
