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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #405853
Research Project: Management and Biology of Arthropod Pests and Arthropod-borne Plant Pathogens

Location: Emerging Pests and Pathogens Research

Title: Potato leafroll virus modulates aphid infection with a newly described insect flavivirus

Author
item LARREA-SARMIENTO, ADRIANA - Cornell University
item OLMEDO-VELARDE, ALEJANDRO - Cornell University
item PREISING, STEPHANIE - Cornell University
item WEST-ORTIZ, MICHAEL - Cornell University
item FEI, ZHANGJUN - Cornell University
item Heck, Michelle

Submitted to: Phytopathology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/3/2023
Publication Date: 2/7/2023
Citation: Larrea-Sarmiento, A., Olmedo-Velarde, A., Preising, S., West-Ortiz, M., Fei, Z., Heck, M.L. 2023. Potato leafroll virus modulates aphid infection with a newly described insect flavivirus. Phytopathology. 125:102015. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmpp.2023.102015.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmpp.2023.102015

Interpretive Summary: Aphids are tiny plant-feeding insects no larger than the size of a pencil tip. These insects are the most prolific vector of plant viruses world-wide. The economic burden caused by aphid-transmitted plant viruses in agriculture is in the billions of dollars annually. Biological control strategies that include aphid-infecting viruses may be one way to manage aphid vector populations. In this work, we describe the discovery of a new aphid-infecting flavivirus. Importantly, the research showed that the flavivirus does not infect plants and only infects aphids. Moreover, when aphids are carrying certain types of plant viruses, flavivirus replication changes, suggesting that the presence of plant viruses in the agro-ecosystem may interfere with efforts to use certain types of insect viruses as a biological control tactic. The work underscores the extreme importance of evaluating biological control pathogens for insect vectors such, as aphids, in experiments with plant viruses that are transmitted by the target insect vector species.

Technical Abstract: A new positive, single-stranded RNA virus within the Flavivirus genus was identified and characterized infecting Myzus persicae. The Myzus persicae flavivirus (MpFV) is 23,236 nucleotides in length and encodes a large polyprotein from a single ORF. Analysis of conserved domains showed that helicases, NS3-proteases, Fts-J methyltransferase, and an RdRp are present in the coded polyprotein. Phylogenetic analyses placed this putative new virus in the flavivirus clade together with other insect-infecting flaviviruses. Previously, we performed a small RNA (sRNA) sequencing analysis of M. persicae to examine the role of different aphid-borne viruses, including the circulative potato leafroll virus (PLRV) and the stylet-borne potato virus Y (PVY), on aphid antiviral immunity. We re-analyzed those data for the presence of MpFV. MpFV sRNA reads were detected in aphid samples that had fed on healthy plants, sucrose diet, PVY-infected plants. In contrast, no reads were detected in aphids that had acquired PLRV from infected plants or purified virus from artificial diet sachets. The results provide further support that PLRV modulates aphid immunity against insect-infecting viruses and suggests the existence of at least two distinct pathways for PLRV-induced aphid immune system modulation.