Transcriptomic diagnostics for identifying interactive effects of pesticides, food deficiency, and heat stress on bee health.

转录组诊断用于识别农药、食物缺乏和热应激对蜜蜂健康的相互作用影响。

• 批准号: BB/T015683/1
• 负责人: Yannick Wurm
• 金额: $ 70.14万
• 依托单位: Queen Mary University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FT015683%2F1
• 关键词: Transcriptomic; diagnostics; identifying; interactive; effects

Pollination by bees is essential for the survival of many wild plants and harvesting of many crops. Over recent decades, however, bees have been in decline worldwide. This creates a major risk and potentially a huge cost - the economic value of pollination is estimated to be £430 million per year in the UK alone. Causes for the recent bee declines include habitat loss which reduces access to food, changing temperatures, and exposure to pesticides. Indeed, previously authorised pesticides in fact have unintended impacts on bees, reducing their abilities to forage for food, and ultimately their survival. Three of the most commonly used pesticides were thus suspended in 2013 and banned by the European Commission in 2018.Does this mean that pesticides that remain authorised pesticides are safe for bees? Unfortunately, the manners by which the effects of pesticides are evaluated have been too crude to be certain. To obtain clarity, we will apply a type of molecular medicine approach that has over the past decade dramatically improved treatment and understanding of human diseases. We will apply the new technology to understand the effects of one established neonicotinoid pesticide (acetamiprid), and two new pesticides that have (with some contention) been heralded as "bee-safe" alternatives to the banned neonicotinoids: sulfoxaflor and flupyradifurone. For this purpose, we will perform controlled experiments in which we expose bees to individual pesticides and pesticide combinations - as occurs when neighbouring farms apply different products. Furthermore, we will perform experiments to determine whether the effects of pesticides change when simulating a warmer climate or if food has low nutritional quality - as is common in landscapes dominated by monocultures. Our experiments will be on two common British bee species that are also extensively bred for agricultural pollination: the social large earth bumblebee Bombus terrestris and the solitary red mason bee Osmia bicornis. The "transcriptomic diagnostics" we apply to the bees will provide tens of thousands of measurements per experiment - rather than the handful obtained through traditional approaches. Indeed, we will measure changes in activity levels for each of the 12,000 gene building blocks in brain, flight muscle and a detoxification tissue of bees. This approach is highly sensitive and able to directly detect even subtle changes in the bees' physiologies and metabolisms. Furthermore, because we will measure gene activity in a detoxification tissue as well as brain and muscle, we will be able to determine whether changes in activity level are helping the bees cope with pesticide exposure. Our work will 1) provide urgently needed insight into the effects of these specific pesticides on bees; 2) likely reveal previously unknown effects of authorised pesticides; 3) identify potential differences between these pesticides which are thought to act in similar manners; 4) clarify whether there are "non-additive" interactions between pesticides or with other environmental stressors; 5) whether conclusions about toxicity for one species are representative of another; and 6) unambiguously demonstrate the power and sensitivity of applying the "transcriptomic diagnostics" approach for determining bee health.The biological knowledge we gain through this project will inform regulatory decisions about the currently authorised pesticides. Furthermore, we expect that the approach we develop will fundamentally improve future evaluation of pesticides for research and regulation. Ultimately, both will improve the fates of Britain's bees.

蜜蜂的授粉对于许多野生植物的生存和许多农作物的收获至关重要。然而，近几十年来，蜜蜂在全球范围内一直在下降。这造成了重大风险和潜在的巨大成本-授粉的经济价值估计仅在英国每年就有4.3亿英镑。最近蜜蜂数量下降的原因包括栖息地的丧失，这减少了获得食物的机会，温度的变化以及接触杀虫剂。事实上，以前批准的杀虫剂实际上对蜜蜂产生了意想不到的影响，降低了它们觅食的能力，最终降低了它们的生存能力。因此，2013年，三种最常用的杀虫剂被暂停使用，并于2018年被欧盟委员会禁止使用。不幸的是，评估杀虫剂效果的方法过于粗糙，无法确定。为了获得清晰度，我们将应用一种分子医学方法，该方法在过去十年中极大地改善了对人类疾病的治疗和理解。我们将应用新技术来了解一种已建立的类烟碱杀虫剂（啶虫脒）和两种新杀虫剂的影响，这两种杀虫剂（有一些争议）被宣布为禁用类烟碱的“蜜蜂安全”替代品：氟啶虫胺砜和氟吡呋酮。为此，我们将进行受控实验，让蜜蜂接触单独的杀虫剂和杀虫剂组合-就像邻近农场使用不同产品时发生的那样。此外，我们将进行实验，以确定农药的影响是否会在模拟温暖的气候时发生变化，或者食物是否营养质量低-这在以单一栽培为主的景观中很常见。我们的实验将在两种常见的英国蜜蜂物种上进行，这两种蜜蜂也被广泛地培育用于农业授粉：社会性的大地球熊蜂和孤独的红梅森蜜蜂壁蜂。我们应用于蜜蜂的“转录组学诊断”将在每次实验中提供数万个测量结果-而不是通过传统方法获得的少数测量结果。事实上，我们将测量蜜蜂大脑，飞行肌肉和解毒组织中12，000个基因构建块中每一个的活性水平变化。这种方法非常灵敏，能够直接检测蜜蜂生理和代谢的细微变化。此外，由于我们将测量解毒组织以及大脑和肌肉中的基因活性，我们将能够确定活性水平的变化是否有助于蜜蜂科普农药暴露。 我们的工作将1）提供迫切需要的洞察这些特定农药对蜜蜂的影响; 2）可能揭示以前未知的授权农药的影响; 3）确定这些农药之间的潜在差异，这些农药被认为以类似的方式发挥作用; 4）澄清农药之间或与其他环境压力因素之间是否存在“非加性”相互作用; 5）关于一个物种毒性的结论是否代表另一个物种; 6）明确证明应用“转录组学诊断”方法确定蜜蜂健康的能力和灵敏度。我们通过这个项目获得的生物学知识将为关于目前授权杀虫剂的监管决定提供信息。此外，我们希望我们开发的方法将从根本上改善未来对农药的研究和监管评估。最终，两者都将改善英国蜜蜂的命运。

项目成果

Genomic Signatures of Recent Adaptation in a Wild Bumblebee.

• DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msab366
• 发表时间: 2022-02-03
• 期刊: Molecular biology and evolution
• 影响因子: 10.7
• 作者: Colgan TJ;Arce AN;Gill RJ;Ramos Rodrigues A;Kanteh A;Duncan EJ;Li L;Chittka L;Wurm Y
• 通讯作者: Wurm Y

Individual-based Modeling of Genome Evolution in Haplodiploid Organisms.

• DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evac062
• 发表时间: 2022-05-03
• 期刊: GENOME BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
• 影响因子: 3.3
• 作者: Pracana, Rodrigo;Burns, Richard;Hammond, Robert L.;Haller, Benjamin C.;Wurm, Yannick
• 通讯作者: Wurm, Yannick

Convergent evolution of a labile nutritional symbiosis in ants.

蚂蚁不稳定营养共生的趋同进化。

• DOI: 10.1038/s41396-022-01256-1
• 发表时间: 2022-09
• 期刊: ISME JOURNAL
• 影响因子: 11
• 作者: Jackson, Raphaella;Monnin, David;Patapiou, Patapios A.;Golding, Gemma;Helanterae, Heikki;Oettler, Jan;Heinze, Juergen;Wurm, Yannick;Economou, Chloe K.;Chapuisat, Michel;Henry, Lee M.
• 通讯作者: Henry, Lee M.

No supergene despite social polymorphism in the big-headed ant Pheidole pallidula

尽管大头蚁 Pheidole pallidula 存在社会多态性，但没有超基因

• DOI: 10.1101/2022.12.06.519286
• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Favreau E

Social isolation and group size are associated with divergent gene expression in the brain of ant queens.

• DOI: 10.1111/gbb.12758
• 发表时间: 2022-03
• 期刊: Genes, brain, and behavior