TY - JOUR T1 - The virome of <em>Drosophila suzukii</em>, an invasive pest of soft fruit JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/190322 SP - 190322 AU - Nathan C. Medd AU - Simon Fellous AU - Madoka Nakai AU - Anne Xuéreb AU - Jerry V. Cross AU - Darren J. Obbard Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/18/190322.abstract N2 - Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) is an invasive dipteran pest of soft fruits that causes substantial damage to the horticultural crops of Europe and North America. As conventional control of this pest is challenging, an environmentally benign microbial biopesticide is highly desirable. A lethal virus could prove to be such a control agent. Here we use a metatranscriptomic approach to discover new viruses infecting this fly and its larvae, in both its native (Japanese) and invasive (British and French) ranges. We describe 18 new RNA viruses, including members of the Picornavirales, Mononegavirales, Bunyavirales, Chuviruses, Nodaviridae, Tombusviridae, Reoviridae, and Nidovirales, and discuss their phylogenetic relationships with previously known viruses. We also detect 18 previously described viruses of other Drosophila species that show potential association with D. suzukii in the wild.Importance Drosophila suzukii is one of the most damaging and costly pests to invade temperate horticultural regions in recent history. Current control methods rely heavily on labour intensive cultural control and environmentally harmful chemical controls. A thorough exploration of the pathogens infecting this pest is the first step on the road to the development of an effective biopesticide. We hope these data will facilitate the onward development of such control agents. In addition, because D. suzukii is closely related to the well-studied model species D. melanogaster, our work provides a valuable comparative dataset for the study of viruses in the model family Drosophilidae. ER -