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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Bee Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #404799
Research Project: Managing Honey Bees Against Disease and Colony Stress

Location: Bee Research Laboratory

Title: Honeybee symbiont Bombella apis could restore larval to pupal transition disrupted by antibiotic treatment

Author
item CHEN, XIAOWEN - Qinghai University
item LI, JIAHAO - Guangdong Academy
item DING, ZHAORUN - Guangdong Academy
item LI, WENFENG - Guangdong Academy
item HAN, RICHOU - Guangdong Academy
item Chen, Yanping - Judy
item XIE, HUICHUN - Qinghai University
item ZHANG, YI - Guangdong University

Submitted to: Journal of Insect Physiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/19/2023
Publication Date: 12/22/2023
Citation: Chen, X., Li, J., Ding, Z., Li, W., Han, R., Chen, Y., Xie, H., Zhang, Y. 2023. Honeybee symbiont Bombella apis could restore larval to pupal transition disrupted by antibiotic treatment. Journal of Insect Physiology. 153. Article e104601. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2023.104601.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2023.104601

Interpretive Summary: Antibiotics kill harmful bacteria but they can also harm beneficial gut bacteria in animals. Our studies showed that tetracycline, an antibiotic used to treat bee diseases caused by bacteria, could disrupt the balance of the gut bacterial community by killing important resident bacteria in honeybees’ gut. In addition, the growth and development of honeybee larvae with the disrupted gut bacterial community were found to be profoundly halted. By feeding tetracycline-treated larvae with one most common species of bacteria found in the larval gut, we found that the normal development of larvae was restored. Our data clearly illustrated the positive impact of beneficial bacteria on honeybee larvae development and should be of interest to researchers, graduate students, beekeepers, and policymakers worldwide.

Technical Abstract: Many studies demonstrated the essential roles of gut microbes in the health, immunity, nutrient metabolism, and behavior of adult worker honeybees. However, a few studies have been conducted on gut microbiota associated with the larval stage of honeybees. In this study, we explored the role of Bombella apis, a bacterium that is found in the guts of honeybee queens and larvae as well as colony food, including honey pollen and royal jelly, in the larval-pupal transition of the Asian honeybee, Apis cerana. First, we showed that tetracycline, an antibiotic used to treat a honeybee bacterial brood disease American Foulbrood, could disrupt the balance of larval bacterial flora, which in turn resulted in larvae failing to pupate. Further, our gene expression study showed that the expression of genes encoding storage proteins vitellogenin (vg) and major royal jelly protein 1 (mrjp1) was significantly down-regulated after tetracycline treatment. At the same time, the expression of krüppel homolog 1(kr-h1), a key endocrine signaling gene, was increased, and the transcription of broad-complex (br-c) gene that plays a key role in the ecdysone regulation was decreased. These results indicated the orchestration of juvenile hormone and ecdysteroid synthesis in the larval stage was disrupted, thereby leading to larvae failing to pupate. Finally, we isolated and cultivated B. apis islated from the fifth instar worker larval of A.cerana. After feeding larvae with a diet replenished by B. apis, we found that the larvae pupation rate, emergence rate, and survivor rate were increased significantly. Our data clearly illustrated that B. apis positively impact honeybeelarvae development and provides new evidence of the functional capacity of gut microbes in honeybee growth and development.