siRNA-based assembly of bee viral genomes. Apis mellifera

Over the last decade, honey bee population decline has been reported in North America, Europe and few regions of Asia. This has been associated with different factors including RNA viruses. This has led to an increase in bee virus research. Recent studies on the immune response of honey bees to RNA virus infection have shown that deep sequencing of siRNA can be used as tool for detection and sequencing of these viruses. For the first time, we demonstrate that this tool can be used to assemble complete bee RNA viral genomes, and to confirm infectivity in the host.