Chromosomal scale assembly of parasitic wasp genome reveals symbiotic virus colonization.

Endogenous viruses form an important proportion of eukaryote genomes and a source of novel functions. How large DNA viruses integrated into a genome evolve when they confer a benefit to their host, however, remains unknown. Bracoviruses are essential for the parasitism success of parasitoid wasps, into whose genomes they integrated ~103 million years ago.

Occurrence and Molecular Phylogeny of Honey Bee Viruses in Vespids.

Since the discovery that honey bee viruses play a role in colony decline, researchers have made major breakthroughs in understanding viral pathology and infection processes in honey bees. Work on virus transmission patterns and virus vectors, such as the mite , has prompted intense efforts to manage honey bee health. However, little is known about the occurrence of honey bee viruses in bee predators, such as vespids.

Viruses in the Invasive Hornet .

The Asian yellow-legged hornet , a major predator of honeybees, is spreading in Europe in part due to a lack of efficient control methods. In this study, as a first step to identify biological control agents, we characterized viral RNA sequences present in asymptomatic or symptomatic hornets. Among 19 detected viruses, the honey bee virus was predominant in all the samples, particularly in muscles from the symptomatic hornet, suggesting a putative cause of the deformed wing symptom.

Gall Wasp Transcriptomes Unravel Potential Effectors Involved in Molecular Dialogues With Oak and Rose.

To gain insight into wasp factors that might be involved in the initial induction of galls on woody plants, we performed high throughput (454) transcriptome analysis of ovaries and venom glands of two cynipid gall wasps, and , inducing galls on oak and rose, respectively. assembled and annotated contigs were compared to sequences from phylogenetically related parasitoid wasps. The relative expression levels of contigs were estimated to identify the most expressed gene sequences in each tissue.

Genetic footprints of adaptive divergence in the bracovirus of Cotesia sesamiae identified by targeted resequencing.

The African parasitoid wasp Cotesia sesamiae is a generalist species structured in locally adapted populations showing differences in host range. The recent discovery of Cotesia typhae, a specialist, sister species to C. sesamiae, provides a good framework to study the genetic determinants of parasitoid host range.

Discovery of associated tunisia virus: a new ssRNA(+) virus representing a new insect associated virus family.

In the global context of arboviral emergence, deep sequencing unlocks the discovery of new mosquito-borne viruses. Mosquitoes of the species , , and were sampled from 22 locations worldwide for transcriptomic analyses. A virus discovery pipeline was used to analyze the dataset of 0.

The discovery of Halictivirus resolves the Sinaivirus phylogeny.

By providing pollination services, bees are among the most important insects, both in ecological and economical terms. Combined next-generation and classical sequencing approaches were applied to discover and study new insect viruses potentially harmful to bees. A bioinformatics virus discovery pipeline was used on individual Illumina transcriptomes of 13 wild bees from three species from the genus Halictus and 30 ants from six species of the genera Messor and Aphaenogaster.

Comparative Analysis of Transcriptomes from Secondary Reproductives of Three Reticulitermes Termite Species.

Termites are eusocial insects related to cockroaches that feed on lignocellulose. These insects are key species in ecosystems since they recycle a large amount of nutrients but also are pests, exerting major economic impacts. Knowledge on the molecular pathways underlying reproduction, caste differentiation or lignocellulose digestion would largely benefit from additional transcriptomic data.

Molecular Evolution of Freshwater Snails with Contrasting Mating Systems.

Because mating systems affect population genetics and ecology, they are expected to impact the molecular evolution of species. Self-fertilizing species experience reduced effective population size, recombination rates, and heterozygosity, which in turn should decrease the efficacy of natural selection, both adaptive and purifying, and the strength of meiotic drive processes such as GC-biased gene conversion. The empirical evidence is only partly congruent with these predictions, depending on the analyzed species, some, but not all, of the expected effects have been observed.

Adaptive selection on bracovirus genomes drives the specialization of Cotesia parasitoid wasps.

The geographic mosaic of coevolution predicts parasite virulence should be locally adapted to the host community. Cotesia parasitoid wasps adapt to local lepidopteran species possibly through their symbiotic bracovirus. The virus, essential for the parasitism success, is at the heart of the complex coevolutionary relationship linking the wasps and their hosts.

Three infectious viral species lying in wait in the banana genome.

Plant pararetroviruses integrate serendipitously into their host genomes. The banana genome harbors integrated copies of banana streak virus (BSV) named endogenous BSV (eBSV) that are able to release infectious pararetrovirus. In this investigation, we characterized integrants of three BSV species-Goldfinger (eBSGFV), Imove (eBSImV), and Obino l'Ewai (eBSOLV)-in the seedy Musa balbisiana Pisang klutuk wulung (PKW) by studying their molecular structure, genomic organization, genomic landscape, and infectious capacity.

Reference-free population genomics from next-generation transcriptome data and the vertebrate-invertebrate gap.

In animals, the population genomic literature is dominated by two taxa, namely mammals and drosophilids, in which fully sequenced, well-annotated genomes have been available for years. Data from other metazoan phyla are scarce, probably because the vast majority of living species still lack a closely related reference genome. Here we achieve de novo, reference-free population genomic analysis from wild samples in five non-model animal species, based on next-generation sequencing transcriptome data.

Evidence for widespread positive and purifying selection across the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) genome.

The nearly neutral theory of molecular evolution predicts that the efficacy of both positive and purifying selection is a function of the long-term effective population size (N(e)) of a species. Under this theory, the efficacy of natural selection should increase with N(e). Here, we tested this simple prediction by surveying ~1.

Next-generation sequencing of transcriptomes: a guide to RNA isolation in nonmodel animals.

Next Generation Sequencing technologies (NGS) are rapidly invading many evolutionary and ecological fields, such as phylogenomics, molecular evolution, population genomics and molecular ecology. Among the potential targets of NGS is transcriptome sequencing, a fast and relatively cheap way to generate massive amounts of coding sequence data, offering promising perspectives for the analysis of molecular diversity in the wild. A number of molecular ecology research groups therefore may switch from DNA-based to RNA-based typing in the near future.

Building bridges: formin1 of Arabidopsis forms a connection between the cell wall and the actin cytoskeleton.

Actin microfilament (MF) organization and remodelling is critical to cell function. The formin family of actin binding proteins are involved in nucleating MFs in Arabidopsis thaliana. They all contain formin homology domains in the intracellular, C-terminal half of the protein that interacts with MFs.

Genomic and evolutionary features of the SPI-1 type III secretion system that is present in Xanthomonas albilineans but is not essential for xylem colonization and symptom development of sugarcane leaf scald.

Xanthomonas albilineans is the causal agent of sugarcane leaf scald. Interestingly, this bacterium, which is not known to be insect or animal associated, possesses a type III secretion system (T3SS) belonging to the injectisome family Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI-1). The T3SS SPI-1 of X.

A four-partner plant–virus interaction: enemies can also come from within.

Plant viruses are disseminated by either vertical (vegetative multiplication or sexual reproduction) or horizontal (vector-mediated) propagation. Plant pararetroviruses—members of the Caulimoviridae family—have developed an alternative strategy for vertical propagation via integration within the host plant genome, although integration is not required for viral replication. Integrated endogenous pararetrovirus (EPRV) sequences have undergone extensive viral genome rearrangements and contain more than one copy of the viral genome.

Evolution of endogenous sequences of banana streak virus: what can we learn from banana (Musa sp.) evolution?

Endogenous plant pararetroviruses (EPRVs) are viral sequences of the family Caulimoviridae integrated into the nuclear genome of numerous plant species. The ability of some endogenous sequences of Banana streak viruses (eBSVs) in the genome of banana (Musa sp.) to induce infections just like the virus itself was recently demonstrated (P.

Phylogeny of Banana Streak Virus reveals recent and repetitive endogenization in the genome of its banana host (Musa sp.).

Banana streak virus (BSV) is a plant dsDNA pararetrovirus (family Caulimoviridae, genus badnavirus). Although integration is not an essential step in the BSV replication cycle, the nuclear genome of banana (Musa sp.) contains BSV endogenous pararetrovirus sequences (BSV EPRVs).

A single Banana streak virus integration event in the banana genome as the origin of infectious endogenous pararetrovirus.

Sequencing of plant nuclear genomes reveals the widespread presence of integrated viral sequences known as endogenous pararetroviruses (EPRVs). Banana is one of the three plant species known to harbor infectious EPRVs. Musa balbisiana carries integrated copies of Banana streak virus (BSV), which are infectious by releasing virions in interspecific hybrids.