High Level of Sequence-Variation in Sacbrood Virus (SBV) from Apis mellifera

Sacbrood virus (SBV) is one of the main pathogenic RNA viruses of honeybee. SBV is found worldwide and many local strains have been reported, such as kSBV, cSBV, and wSBV. In this study, SBV-specific DNA fragments were cloned and sequenced by reverse-transcription PCR from 4 populations of A. mellifera, 4 sequences from 1 population belonged to the 2134D51 genotype (349 nucleotides, nt) and 12 sequences from 3 populations belonged to the 2100D0 genotype (400 nt) among the 16 determined sequences. A total of 87 points of mismatches were found by comparison with the most similar sequences in GenBank. Seventeen single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were detected, and 6 SNP-patterns in the 2100D0 genotype and 2 SNP-patterns in the 2134D51 genotype were identified based on SNP positions. In SNP-pattern 2, 10 SNPs were detected, but only 2 SNPs were found in SNP-pattern7. Meanwhile, one SNP-pattern was found from one RNA-sample, multi SNP-patterns were detected from other RNA-samples. Large numbers of SNP variants indicate that vast numbers of point-mutations on SBV have occurred since SBV invaded Korea and that SNP smay have been introduced individually over time. Thorough analysis of SNP variants will not only define the local infection-route, but also the relationships between SNP-pattern and SBV-pathogenic abilities.