Partitiviruses Infecting Drosophila melanogaster and Aedes aegypti Exhibit Efficient Biparental Vertical Transmission

Abstract

Galbut virus is a recently discovered partitivirus that is extraordinarily common in wild populations of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster . Like for most viruses discovered through metagenomics, most of the basic biological questions about this virus remain unanswered. We found that galbut virus, along with a closely related partitivirus found in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, is transmitted from infected females or males to offspring with ∼100% efficiency and can be maintained in laboratory colonies over years. This efficient transmission mechanism likely underlies the successful spread of these viruses through insect populations. We created Drosophila lines that contained galbut virus as the only virus infection and showed that these flies can be used as a source for experimental infections. This provides insight into how arthropod-infecting partitiviruses may be maintained in nature and sets the stage for exploration of their biology and potential utility.