Particularly under threat are honey bees, which are as vital to our food systems as the crops they pollinate, and which are prone to a range of emergent diseases including Moku and Deformed wing virus (DWV).
The Moku virus was identified through a collaboration of institutes with complementary expertise.
Purnima Pachori of the Platforms Pipelines Group at the Earlham Institute (EI) carried out the bioinformatics work of separating out host and viral genetic material, which allowed for the analysis and identification of the novel Moku virus led by Gideon Mordecai (based at the time at the Marine Biological Association (MBA), Plymouth).
“It’s brilliant that our computational biology expertise at EI could contribute to the characterisation of a new virus which can be a threat to pollinator health worldwide” said Purnima.
It was through work at the MBA that the true uniqueness of the Moku virus revealed itself. Gideon Mordecai said, “The use of next generation gene sequencing techniques has led to a rapid increase in virus discovery, and is a powerful tool for investigating the enormous diversity of viruses out there.”
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Image Credit: Earlham Institute
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