Control of Paenibacillus larvae, the causative agent of American Foulbrood in honeybees

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Bees as pollinators play a critical role in efficient plant and crop pollination for global food production. Managed colonies of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, provide nearly 90% of the commercial pollination service in global agriculture making honeybees one of the most important livestock animals. Honeybees are vitally important to Canadian food production with an estimated value of $2 billion annually arising from their pollination services. These insects are facing a host of threats, from blood-sucking mites and harmful microbes, to pesticides and climate change. Thus, honeybee health is of critical global relevance and research leading to the understanding and treatment of bee diseases such as American Foulbrood (AFB) are considered paramount. AFB is the most common and destructive of the bee brood diseases and is caused by Paenibacillus larvae, which is a gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium that has become a honeybee pathogen. P. larvae is controlled through antibiotic therapy to non-resistant strains of the pathogen, although there is a thrust to develop alternative treatment strategies including natural antimicrobial compounds such as oils from various plants. Importantly, resistance is rising to oxytetracycline hydrochloride (Terramycin) and new strategies such as the novel antivirulence approach are urgently needed for prevention and control of AFB. Dr. Merrill at the University of Guelph will work with Syngenta Canada to develop effective compounds for treating AFB in honeybees, with a special focus on natural products that serve as therapeutics against the honeybee pathogen. Dr. Merrill's team has developed a rapid and powerful strategy for the discovery and characterization of novel therapeutics against bacterial toxins and they are using this approach to identify new antibacterial compounds with radically different mechanisms of action which represents an innovative therapeutic concept. To date, the Merrill team has identified a suite of potent inhibitors against the causative agent of AFB, Paenibacillus larvae and its associated virulence factors (toxins) for application in combating this honeybee brood disease. These inhibitors work against the toxins both in vitro and in cell culture. Field studies are needed to test their efficacy