By Ruby Ayala
Honey bees are very critical pollinators and play a huge role in global food production. Without honey bees, dozens of agricultural crops ranging from fruits to nuts to vegetables would either decrease substantially or vanish all together. Unfortunately, our friendly neighborhood pollinators are experiencing wide population declines due to parasites, such as Varroa mites, and pathogens, such as the RNA virus that causes wing deformity. The increasing loss of the honey bees has become a problem for agriculture; therefore, Leonard and colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin conducted a study wherein they evaluated the honey bee's survival rate after having engineered bacteria that inhabit their gut microbiome to combat varroa mite infestations and wing deformity. The team engineered two different bacterial strains for the honey bees to ingest; one that targets the RNA virus and one that targets the Varroa mites. The engineered bacteria have a symbiotic relationship with the honeybee and produce double-stranded DNA that alters gene expression and triggers RNA interference immune responses. The results of the study showed that compared with the control bees, the bees with wing deformity treated with the engineered bacterial strain were 36.5% more likely to survive a longer period of time (10 days). Also, the Varroa mites on bees treated with the mite-targeting strain were 70% more likely to die compared to the mites feeding on the control bees. The findings of this research not only provide a possible solution to decrease the loss of honey bee populations but also gives other researchers an insight into how bacteria can be altered to save other species from disease.
Original article:
Leonard SP, Powell JE, Perutka J, Geng P, Heckmann LC, Horak RD, Davies BW, Ellington AD, Barrick JE, Moran NA. 2020. Engineered Symbionts Activate Honey Bee Immunity and Limit Pathogens. Science 367:573-576.
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