Project description:The microsporidia Nosema ceranae are intracellular parasites that proliferate in the midgut epithelial cells of honey bees (Apis mellifera). To analyze the pathological effects of those microsporidia, we orally infected honey bee workers 7 days after their emergence. Bees were flash frozen 15 days after the infection. Then, the effects on the gut ventriculi were analyzed and compared to non-infected (control) bees.
Project description:It is estimated that animals pollinate 87.5% of flowering plants worldwide and that managed honey bees (Apis mellifera) account for 30-50% of this ecosystem service to agriculture. In addition to their important role as pollinators, honey bees are well-established insect models for studying learning and memory, behaviour, caste differentiation, epigenetic mechanisms, olfactory biology, sex determination and eusociality. Despite their importance to agriculture, knowledge of honey bee biology lags behind many other livestock species. In this study we have used scRNA-Seq to map cell types to different developmental stages of the worker honey bee (prepupa at day 11 and pupa at day 15), and sought to determine their gene signatures and thereby provide potential functional annotations for as yet poorly characterized genes. To identify cell type populations we examined the cell-to-cell network based on the similarity of the single-cells’ transcriptomic profiles. Grouping similar cells together we identified 63 different cell clusters of which 15 clusters were identifiable at both stages. To determine genes associated with specific cell populations or with a particular biological process involved in honey bee development, we used gene co-expression analysis. We combined this analysis with literature mining, the honey bee protein atlas and Gene Ontology analysis to determine cell cluster identity. Of the cell clusters identified, 9 were related to the nervous system, 7 to the fat body, 14 to the cuticle, 5 to muscle, 4 to compound eye, 2 to midgut, 2 to hemocytes and 1 to malpighian tubule/pericardial nephrocyte. To our knowledge, this is the first whole single cell atlas of honey bees at any stage of development and demonstrates the potential for further work to investigate their biology of at the cellular level.
Project description:The microsporidia Nosema ceranae are intracellular parasites that proliferate in the midgut epithelial cells of honey bees (Apis mellifera). To analyze the pathological effects of those microsporidia, we orally infected honey bee workers 7 days after their emergence. Bees were flash frozen 15 days after the infection. Then, the effects on the gut ventriculi were analyzed and compared to non-infected (control) bees. Comparisons of control vs Nosema ceranae bees
Project description:Understanding the biological mechanisms underlying extreme lifespan variation within species remains a fundamental challenge in aging research. Here, we investigated the role of gut microbiota and age in honey bee (Apis mellifera) queens combining metagenomics and transcriptomics. Analysis of 40 queen hindguts revealed that Commensalibacter melissae (Alpha 2.1) relative abundance was significantly higher in young queens compared to old queens. Using queens with the highest and lowest C. melissae relative abundance, RNA sequencing identified 1,451 differentially expressed genes associated with C. melissae abundance, twice the number associated with age alone (719 genes). Queens with high C. melissae abundance showed distinct transcriptional profiles related to stress response, protein homeostasis, and longevity-regulating pathways, particularly genes involved in oxidative stress response and cellular maintenance. Our analysis revealed complex relationships between age, C. melissae abundance, and gene expression patterns, suggesting that multiple interacting factors contribute to queen quality. These findings contribute to our understanding of host-microbe interactions in honey bee queens and highlight the intricate relationship between gut microbiota composition and host physiology in honey bees.
