Ortiz-Baez Ayda Susana, Holmes Edward C, Charon Justine, Pettersson John H-O, Hesson Jenny C
Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases, School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Clinical Microbiology and Hospital Hygiene, Uppsala University Hospital, Dag Hammarskjölds väg 38, Uppsala SE-751 85, Sweden.
Virus Evol. 2022 Sep 24;8(2):veac090. doi: 10.1093/ve/veac090. eCollection 2022.
Arthropods harbor a largely undocumented diversity of RNA viruses. Some arthropods, like mosquitoes, can transmit viruses to vertebrates but are themselves parasitized by other arthropod species, such as mites. Very little is known about the viruses of these ectoparasites and how they move through the host-parasite relationship. To address this, we determined the virome of both mosquitoes and the mites that feed on them. The mosquito is an abundant and widely distributed species in Sweden, in northern Europe. These dipterans are commonly parasitized by water mite larvae (Trombidiformes: Mideopsidae) that are hypothesized to impose negative selection pressures on the mosquito by reducing fitness. In turn, viruses are dual-host agents in the mosquito-mite interaction. We determined the RNA virus diversity of mite-free and mite-detached mosquitoes, as well as their parasitic mites, using meta-transcriptomic sequencing. Our results revealed an extensive RNA virus diversity in both mites and mosquitoes, including thirty-seven putative novel RNA viruses that cover a wide taxonomic range. Notably, a high proportion of viruses (20/37) were shared between mites and mosquitoes, while a limited number of viruses were present in a single host. Comparisons of virus composition and abundance suggest potential virus transfer between mosquitoes and mites during their symbiotic interaction. These findings shed light on virome diversity and ecology in the context of arthropod host-parasite-virus relationships.
节肢动物体内存在着大量尚未被记录的RNA病毒。一些节肢动物，如蚊子，能够将病毒传播给脊椎动物，但它们自身也会被其他节肢动物物种寄生，比如螨虫。对于这些体外寄生虫所携带的病毒以及它们如何在宿主 - 寄生虫关系中传播，我们知之甚少。为了解决这个问题，我们确定了蚊子以及以蚊子为食的螨虫的病毒组。这种蚊子在北欧的瑞典是一种数量众多且分布广泛的物种。这些双翅目昆虫通常会被水螨幼虫（绒螨目：中螨科）寄生，据推测，这些水螨幼虫会通过降低蚊子的适应性对其施加负选择压力。反过来，病毒在蚊子 - 螨虫的相互作用中是双宿主媒介。我们使用元转录组测序确定了未被螨虫寄生和已脱离螨虫的蚊子以及它们的寄生螨虫的RNA病毒多样性。我们的结果揭示了螨虫和蚊子体内都存在广泛的RNA病毒多样性，包括37种假定的新型RNA病毒，涵盖了广泛的分类范围。值得注意的是，螨虫和蚊子之间有很大比例的病毒（20/37）是共有的，而只有少数病毒存在于单一宿主中。对病毒组成和丰度的比较表明，在蚊子和螨虫的共生相互作用过程中可能存在病毒转移。这些发现揭示了节肢动物宿主 - 寄生虫 - 病毒关系背景下的病毒组多样性和生态学。
