PGMICRO PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM MICROBIOLOGIA (PGMICRO) INSTITUTO DE BIOLOGIA Phone: Not available

Banca de DEFESA: LUCAS BARBOSA DE AMORIM CONCEIÇÃO

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : LUCAS BARBOSA DE AMORIM CONCEIÇÃO
DATE: 27/02/2023
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: Conferência Web RNP
TITLE:

Identification and Characterization of Endogenous Viral Elements in Genomes of Bombus spp.


KEY WORDS:

Bees; Endogenous Viral Elements; EVE; RNAi; Bombus spp.; Partitiviridae; Phasmaviridae; Totiviridae; Virgaviridae.


PAGES: 40
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Microbiologia
SUMMARY:

Bee populations are extremely important for the maintenance of pollination-dependent populations of plants, which reflects on a market cap of 24 billion dollars, supporting global food production with more than US$ 200 bilhões.  The genus Bombus stands out by comprising efficient pollinator species in commercial crops and their natural habitats. Bee populations have been manifesting a concerning decline due to climate change, the use of pesticides and parasites, especially viruses. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate immunological mechanisms that act on these organisms' immune defenses, decreasing pathogens' influence on the populations. Non-retroviral endogenous elements (EVEs) may be transcribed and processed into small RNAs potentially helping on the antiviral immune response in insect species.  Interfering RNAs (RNAi) constitute the main antiviral response path in Arthropoda. The diversity and transcriptional activity of EVEs has already been proven in dipterans, but there is little data about EVEs in bees. The goal of this study is to identify and characterize EVEs in, publicly available, Bombus spp. Genomes. Firstly, the most recent genomes of 30 Bombus species were obtained from Genbank. After a prediction of Open Reading Frames (ORFs) and subsequent sequence similarity analysis against viral sequence databases, using the programs getorf and DIAMOND, respectively, the selected sequences were submitted to manual curation to eliminate repetitions, retrovirus-like sequences, transposons, DNA virus or other non-viral organisms, only mantaining putative non-retroviral RNA EVEs.. The curated sequences were processed again on NCBI, using both blastx and blastn online versions, to guarantee a better robustnessof the results, and aligned among one another for later inferences on the evolutionary history of these EVEs. It is possible to affirm that the EVEs presented similarities, partially, with four known viral families: Partitiviridae, Phasmaviridae, Totiviridae and Virgaviridae; whereas most of them were similar to non-classified viruses Altogether, each species presented between 1-20 EVEs, excluding B. superbus and B. waltoni, which did not manifest any EVEs; and B. terrestris, B. polaris and B. vosnesenskii, which had more robust results, with 32, 27 and 25 respectively. After aligning with one another, the sequences manifested, on the whole, many cases of similarity between different species, which may suggest an old and common evolutionary origin, endorsed by the data obtained from blastn. In future studies, the transcriptional activity of identified EVEs and the possible small-RNA production that might influence on bee’s antiviral response will be tested.


COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externo ao Programa - ***.021.645-** - ERIC ROBERTO GUIMARAES ROCHA AGUIAR - UFMG
Externo à Instituição - LUIZ EDUARDO VIEIRA DEL BEM - UFMG
Externo à Instituição - RODRIGO ARAÚJO LIMA RODRIGUES - UFMG
Notícia cadastrada em: 20/02/2024 16:12
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