Although I have not tried infecting insects with GFP viruses, I have infected mice and guinea pigs with both GFP and RFP-expressing viruses and it works quite well. The construct I use is a GFP-VP26 fusion protein in HSV. I am certain that infection would work well for insects also, if you are using a virus that infects insect neurons and you have the fluorescent protein under a suitable promoter.

Haha...brilliant answer...I perfectly agree with you, the problem is that all viruses are developed basically only for mammals and I was wondering if either (a) classical viruses such as HSV or AAV would work in honeybee or (b) someone has already modified an insect virus to use as a tool. Otherwise it would take me too much time and money to develop the viral vector myself. Thanks for the reply anyways!

Hi Marco, did u check the option of electroporation??

Here there's an highlight:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X04006898

I'm not sure if they would work in honey bees, but your best bet would probably be an alphavirus or flavivirus, both of which infect mosquito neurons well. Both are neurotropic but alphaviruses tend to be more lytic/replicative in neurons whereas flaviviruses may not replicate as well in primary neurons, but likely enough to see GFP expression. Two articles as a starting point:

An infectious West Nile virus that expresses a GFP reporter gene.

Pierson TC, Diamond MS, Ahmed AA, Valentine LE, Davis CW, Samuel MA, Hanna SL, Puffer BA, Doms RW.

PMID: 15749120 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Introduction of green fluorescent protein (GFP) into hippocampal neurons through viral infection.

Malinow R, Hayashi Y, Maletic-Savatic M, Zaman SH, Poncer JC, Shi SH, Esteban JA, Osten P, Seidenman K.

PMID: 20360360 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Import from the US may prove to be problematic but if you contact these investigators, they may be able to direct you to someone in the UK. Good luck - you'll be breaking new ground if you can get this to work.

Unfortunately insect viruses (baculoviruses, pox viruses, ganulosis viruses) do not infect the nervous system. We have used GFP spruce budworm NPV to infect various tissues but we have never seen it expressed in the nervous system.

Arthur Retnakaran

Thanks marco, the paper on electroporation is quite interesting..i had not considered that option!