Three new viruses found living quietly inside cotton-field aphids
Zhao C, Owens I, Jacobson AL, Escalante C, Bansal R
Crop Improvement
Aphids feeding on your vegetable garden carry hidden passengers, and understanding what viruses those passengers are may eventually explain why some aphid outbreaks fizzle out while others devastate an entire planting.
Scientists collected winged aphids from cotton fields across Alabama and sequenced everything living inside them, including viruses. They found three brand-new viruses that had never been described before, all belonging to a group called iflaviruses, which are known to infect insects without infecting plants directly. These viruses appear to be genuinely replicating inside the aphids, and they spread between different aphid species, suggesting they move around more freely than anyone expected.
Key Findings
Three new iflavirus species were discovered in field-collected aphids: Iflavirus furtiva, Iflavirus obscurata, and Iflavirus rarivira, each with a fully sequenced single-ORF genome.
Virome composition differed across county-level samples, with 58 viral contigs assembled and 20 assigned to 7 known families including Dicistroviridae, Iflaviridae, and Mitoviridae.
Strand-specific RT-PCR confirmed active replication of two viruses (AgIV1 and AgIV2) in cotton aphids, and their non-monophyletic placement in the phylogeny suggests cross-species transmission among aphid hosts.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers sampled winged aphids from 15 Alabama cotton fields and discovered three new viruses belonging to the iflavirus family, naming them after their rarity in the wild. The virome of cotton aphids turns out to be surprisingly diverse, varying by county, and these findings open new questions about how aphid-borne viruses might affect pest populations and crop health.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Novel iflavirus species discovered through virome analysis of cotton field-collected aphids.
Insect-associated viruses (viromes) shape insect biology and agroecosystems, yet aphid viromes remain undercharacterized. The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii, is a globally distributed pest with a bro...
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