Institut de Recherche sur la Biologie de l'Insecte, UMR 7261 CNRS-Université de Tours, 37200 Tours, France.
Department of Genetics, University Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (BIOTECMED), Universitat de València, 46100 Valencia, Spain.
Viruses. 2022 Jun 11;14(6):1274. doi: 10.3390/v14061274.
Black soldier flies (BSFs, ) are becoming a prominent research model encouraged by the insect as food and feed and waste bioconversion industries. Insect mass-rearing facilities are at risk from the spread of viruses, but so far, none have been described in BSFs. To fill this knowledge gap, a bioinformatic approach was undertaken to discover viruses specifically associated with BSFs. First, BSF genomes were screened for the presence of endogenous viral elements (EVEs). This led to the discovery and mapping of seven orthologous EVEs integrated into three BSF genomes originating from five viral families. Secondly, a virus discovery pipeline was used to screen BSF transcriptomes. This led to detecting a new exogenous totivirus that we named hermetia illucens totivirus 1 (HiTV1). Phylogenetic analyses showed this virus belongs to a clade of insect-specific totiviruses and is closely related to the largest EVE located on chromosome 1 of the BSF genome. Lastly, this EVE was found to express a small transcript in some BSFs infected by HiTV1. Altogether, this data mining study showed that far from being unscathed from viruses, BSFs bear traces of past interactions with several viral families and of present interactions with the exogenous HiTV1.
黑腹果蝇（BSFs，）正成为食品和饲料以及废物生物转化行业鼓励的重要研究模型。昆虫大规模饲养设施面临病毒传播的风险，但到目前为止，BSFs 中尚未发现任何病毒。为了填补这一知识空白，采用生物信息学方法来发现与 BSFs 特别相关的病毒。首先，筛选 BSF 基因组中是否存在内源性病毒元件（EVEs）。这导致发现并映射了七个同源 EVEs，它们整合到源自五个病毒家族的三个 BSF 基因组中。其次，使用病毒发现管道筛选 BSF 转录组。这导致检测到一种新的外生 totivirus，我们将其命名为 Hermetia illucens totivirus 1 (HiTV1)。系统发育分析表明，该病毒属于昆虫特异性 totiviruses 的一个分支，与 BSF 基因组第 1 号染色体上最大的 EVE 密切相关。最后，发现该 EVE 在一些感染 HiTV1 的 BSF 中表达一个小的转录本。总的来说，这项数据挖掘研究表明，BSFs 远非未受病毒侵害，而是带有过去与几种病毒家族相互作用以及现在与外源性 HiTV1 相互作用的痕迹。
