Dataset Information

The honey bee parasite Nosema ceranae: transmissible via food exchange?

ABSTRACT: Nosema ceranae, a newly introduced parasite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, is contributing to worldwide colony losses. Other Nosema species, such as N. apis, tend to be associated with increased defecation and spread via a fecal-oral pathway, but because N. ceranae does not induce defecation, it may instead be spread via an oral-oral pathway. Cages that separated older infected bees from young uninfected bees were used to test whether N. ceranae can be spread during food exchange. When cages were separated by one screen, food could be passed between the older bees and the young bees, but when separated by two screens, food could not be passed between the two cages. Young uninfected bees were also kept isolated in cages, as a solitary control. After 4 days of exposure to the older bees, and 10 days to incubate infections, young bees were more likely to be infected in the 1-Screen Test treatment vs. the 2-Screen Test treatment (P=0.0097). Young bees fed by older bees showed a 13-fold increase in mean infection level relative to young bees not fed by older bees (1-Screen Test 40.8%; 2-Screen Test 3.4%; Solo Control 2.8%). Although fecal-oral transmission is still possible in this experimental design, oral-oral infectivity could help explain the rapid spread of N. ceranae worldwide.

SUBMITTER: Smith ML

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3420906 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The honey bee parasite Nosema ceranae: transmissible via food exchange?

Smith Michael L ML

PloS one 20120816 8

Nosema ceranae, a newly introduced parasite of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, is contributing to worldwide colony losses. Other Nosema species, such as N. apis, tend to be associated with increased defecation and spread via a fecal-oral pathway, but because N. ceranae does not induce defecation, it may instead be spread via an oral-oral pathway. Cages that separated older infected bees from young uninfected bees were used to test whether N. ceranae can be spread during food exchange. When cages ...[more]

PMID: 22916241

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Project description:There is great controversy as to whether Microsporidia undergo a sexual cycle. In the paradigmatic case of Nosema ceranae, although there is no morphological evidence of sex, some meiosis-specific genes are present in its reduced genome and there is also high intraspecific variability, with incongruent phylogenies having been systematically obtained. The possibility of sexual recombination is important from an epidemiological standpoint, particularly as N. ceranae is considered to be a major factor in the current disquieting epidemic of widespread bee colony losses. This parasite apparently originated in oriental honey bees, spreading out of Asia and Australia to infect honey bees worldwide. This study had three main objectives: i) to obtain genetic markers that are not part of known multi-copy arrays for strain determination; ii) to shed light on the intraspecific variability and recombination of N. ceranae; and iii) to assess the variability in N. ceranae populations. The answers to these questions are critical to understand the capacity of adaptation of microsporidia.Biallelic polymorphisms were detected at a number of specific points in the five coding loci analyzed from European and Australian isolates of N. ceranae. Heterozygous genotypes were abundant and cloning experiments demonstrate that they reflect the existence of multiple alternative sequences in each isolate. The comparisons of different clones and genotypes clearly indicate that new haplotypes are generated by homologous recombination.The N. ceranae isolates from honey bees correspond to genotypically distinct populations, revealing that individual honey bees may not be infected by a particular clone but rather, a pool of different strains. Homologous recombination implies the existence of a cryptic sex cycle yet to be described in N. ceranae. There are no diagnostic alleles associated with Australian or European origins, nor are there differences between the two hosts, A. cerana and A. mellifera, supporting the absence of biological barriers for N. ceranae transmission. Diversity is high among microsporidia of both these origins, and the maintenance of a high heterozygosis in the recently invaded European populations, could hypothetically underlie the stronger virulence of N. ceranae observed in A. mellifera.

Project description:Apis cerana is the original host for Nosema ceranae, a widespread fungal parasite resulting in honey bee nosemosis, which leads to severe losses to the apiculture industry throughout the world. However, knowledge of N. ceranae infecting eastern honey bees is extremely limited. Currently, the mechanism underlying N. ceranae infection is still largely unknown. Based on our previously gained high-quality transcriptome datasets derived from N. ceranae spores (NcCK group), N. ceranae infecting Apis cerana cerana workers at seven days post inoculation (dpi) and 10 dpi (NcT1 and NcT2 groups), comparative transcriptomic investigation was conducted in this work, with a focus on virulence factor-associated differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Microscopic observation showed that the midguts of A. c. cerana workers were effectively infected after inoculation with clean spores of N. ceranae. In total, 1411, 604, and 38 DEGs were identified from NcCK vs. NcT1, NcCK vs. NcT2, and NcT1 vs. NcT2 comparison groups. Venn analysis showed that 10 upregulated genes and nine downregulated ones were shared by the aforementioned comparison groups. The GO category indicated that these DEGs were involved in a series of functional terms relevant to biological process, cellular component, and molecular function such as metabolic process, cell part, and catalytic activity. Additionally, KEGG pathway analysis suggested that the DEGs were engaged in an array of pathways of great importance such as metabolic pathway, glycolysis, and the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. Furthermore, expression clustering analysis demonstrated that the majority of genes encoding virulence factors such as ricin B lectins and polar tube proteins displayed apparent upregulation, whereas a few virulence factor-associated genes such as hexokinase gene and 6-phosphofructokinase gene presented downregulation during the fungal infection. Finally, the expression trend of 14 DEGs was confirmed by RT-qPCR, validating the reliability of our transcriptome datasets. These results together demonstrated that an overall alteration of the transcriptome of N. ceranae occurred during the infection of A. c. cerana workers, and most of the virulence factor-related genes were induced to activation to promote the fungal invasion. Our findings not only lay a foundation for clarifying the molecular mechanism underlying N. ceranae infection of eastern honey bee workers and microsporidian-host interaction.

Project description:Honey bee (Apis mellifera) health has been severely impacted by multiple environmental stressors including parasitic infection, pesticide exposure, and poor nutrition. The decline in bee health is therefore a complex multifactorial problem which requires a holistic investigative approach. Within the exposome paradigm, the combined exposure to the environment, drugs, food, and individuals' internal biochemistry affects health in positive and negative ways. In the context of the exposome, honey bee hive infection with parasites such as Nosema ceranae is also a form of environmental exposure. In this study, we hypothesized that exposure to xenobiotic pesticides and other environmental chemicals increases susceptibility to N. ceranae infection upon incidental exposure to the parasite. We further queried whether these exposures could be linked to changes in conserved metabolic biological pathways. From 30 hives sampled across 10 sites, a total of 2,352 chemical features were found via gas chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF) in extracts of honey bees collected from each hive. Of these, 20 pesticides were identified and annotated, and found to be significantly associated with N. ceranae infection. We further determined that infected hives were linked to a greater number of xenobiotic exposures, and the relative concentration of the exposures were not linked to the presence of a N. ceranae infection. In the exposome profiles of the bees, we also found chemicals inherent to known biological metabolic pathways of Apis mellifera and identified 9 dysregulated pathways. These findings have led us to posit that for hives exposed to similar chemicals, those that incur multiple, simultaneous xenobiotic stressors have a greater incidence of infection with N. ceranae. Mechanistically, our results suggests the overwhelming nature of these exposures negatively affects the biological functioning of the bee, and could explain how the decline in bee populations is associated with pesticide exposures.

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The honey bee parasite Nosema ceranae: transmissible via food exchange?

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The honey bee parasite Nosema ceranae: transmissible via food exchange?

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