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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Imported Fire Ant and Household Insects Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #183418
Title: SERENDIPITOUS DISCOVERY OF AN RNA VIRUS FROM THE CRICKET ACHETA DOMESTICUS

Author
item Valles, Steven
item CHEN, YANPING - BEE RESEARCH LABORATORY

Submitted to: Florida Entomologist
Publication Type: Research Notes
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/10/2006
Publication Date: 6/1/2006
Citation: Valles, S.M., Chen, Y. 2006. Serendipitous discovery of an rna virus from the cricket acheta domesticus. Florida Entomologist. 89(2):282-283

Interpretive Summary: The red imported fire ant was introduced into the United States in the 1930s and currently infests about 300 million acres. It causes significant economic losses in livestock and agricultural production and poses a serious threat to human health. While analyzing a gene expression library created from the red imported fire ant, USDA-ARS scientists at the Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology (Gainesville, FL) and Bee Research Laboratory (Beltsville, MD) have discovered a new RNA virus. The new virus was subsequently determined to be a contaminant from crickets introduced into the laboratory fire ant nests as food. Although not useful in controlling the fire ant, the discovery will be of interest to virologists and illustrates the importance of verification of infectious diseases in insects.

Technical Abstract: Bioinformatic analysis of approximately 2000 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from a monogyne Solenopsis invicta expression library identified a clone (11F1) exhibiting significant homology with the capsid polyproteins of single-stranded RNA viruses like the Drosophila C virus. Further investigation determined that the cricket, Acheta domesticus, provided as a food source for fire ant colonies maintained in the laboratory was the actual source of the virus. A 1565 nucleotide, polyadenylated contiguous fragment was sequenced from crickets infected with the new virus. Phylogenetic and BLAST analyses of the translated open reading frame sequence indicate that it represents a new virus from cricket (bait cricket virus, BCV) likely a member of the small RNA virus family Dicistroviridae that infect primarily insects.