A Novel Iflavirus Was Discovered in Green Rice Leafhopper Nephotettix cincticeps and Its Proliferation Was Inhibited by Infection of Rice Dwarf Virus

• Main Authors: Wenxi Jia, Fei Wang, Jingjing Li, Xuefei Chang, Yi Yang, Hongwei Yao, Yanyuan Bao, Qisheng Song, Gongyin Ye
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-01
• Series: Frontiers in Microbiology
• Subjects: Iflaviridae; Nephotettix cincticeps; transmission; covert infection; rice dwarf virus; distribution
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2020.621141/full

The green rice leafhopper, Nephotettix cincticeps (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae), is a key insect vector transmitting rice dwarf virus (RDV) that causes rice dwarf disease. We discovered a novel iflavirus from the transcriptomes of N. cincticeps and named it as Nephotettix cincticeps positive-stranded RNA virus-1 (NcPSRV-1). The viral genome consists of 10,524 nucleotides excluding the poly(A) tail and contains one predicted open reading frame encoding a polyprotein of 3,192 amino acids, flanked by 5' and 3' untranslated regions. NcPSRV-1 has a typical iflavirus genome arrangement and is clustered with the members of the family Iflaviridae in the phylogenetic analysis. NcPSRV-1 was detected in all tested tissues and life stages of N. cincticeps and could be transmitted horizontally and vertically. Moreover, NcPSRV-1 had high prevalence in the laboratory populations and was widely spread in field populations of N. cincticeps. NcPSRV-1 could also infect the two-striped leafhopper, Nephotettix apicalis, at a 3.33% infection rate, but was absent in the zigzag leafhopper, Recilia dorsalis, and rice Oryza sativa variety TN1. The infection of RDV altered the viral load and infection rate of NcPSRV-1 in N. cincticeps, for which it seems that RDV has an antagonistic effect on NcPSRV-1 infection in the host.