Mechanistic studies of disease resistance in honey bees

蜜蜂抗病机理研究

• 批准号: RGPIN-2016-04035
• 负责人: Foster, Leonard
• 金额: $ 3.93万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=629469
• 关键词: Mechanistic; studies; disease; resistance; honey

Honey bees are a crucial part of Canadian agriculture, contributing at least $4.6 billion/y: they produce between eighty and ninety thousand tonnes of honey each year and their pollination activities directly support the production of many fruits, nuts and vegetable crops. But the health of honey bees has been declining over the past decade, with Canadian beekeepers losing more than a quarter of their colonies each winter since 2006-07. In Canada, most of the winter losses of bees are attributed to known causes: a parasitic mite, fungal infections and weather. Bees have an innate immune system but it is ineffective against mites and the fungal pathogen has developed a way to avoid it. Thus, beekeepers are forced to use chemicals to control various infectious diseases, including the mite and fungi mentioned, but this is not always effective and is in any case undesirable. Some bees have a secret weapon though, social behaviours that enable them to fight off, or at least live with, pests and pathogens that would otherwise kill them. One of these mechanisms is called hygienic behaviour and our group has previously identified a potential explanation for how this behaviour can happen. It appears as if hygienic bees are better equipped to sense diseased or dying nest-mates and remove them from the colony before the disease spreads. In the work proposed here we will work to understand the molecular processes at work in hygienic behaviour. This will, in turn, feed back into a parallel effort we are involved in that could see the real-world application of these findings into a selective breeding program that aims to strengthen the gene pool of Canadian bees so that they can naturally resist disease without beekeepers having to treat them with synthetic chemicals.

蜜蜂是加拿大农业的重要组成部分，每年至少贡献46亿美元：它们每年生产8万至9万吨蜂蜜，它们的授粉活动直接支持许多水果，坚果和蔬菜作物的生产。但在过去十年中，蜜蜂的健康状况一直在下降，自2006-07年以来，加拿大养蜂人每年冬天都会失去四分之一以上的蜂群。在加拿大，大多数蜜蜂的冬季损失归因于已知的原因：寄生螨，真菌感染和天气。蜜蜂具有先天免疫系统，但对螨虫无效，而真菌病原体已经开发出一种方法来避免它。因此，养蜂人被迫使用化学品来控制各种传染病，包括螨和真菌提到的，但这并不总是有效的，在任何情况下都是不可取的。然而，有些蜜蜂有一种秘密武器，即社会行为，使它们能够击退害虫和病原体，或者至少与之共存，否则这些害虫和病原体会杀死它们。其中一种机制被称为卫生行为，我们的团队之前已经确定了这种行为如何发生的潜在解释。看起来卫生的蜜蜂似乎更有能力感知生病或垂死的同伴，并在疾病传播之前将它们从殖民地中清除出去。在这里提出的工作中，我们将努力了解卫生行为中的分子过程。反过来，这将反馈到我们参与的一项平行工作中，该工作可以将这些发现应用到选择性育种计划中，该计划旨在加强加拿大蜜蜂的基因库，使它们能够自然抵抗疾病，而养蜂人不必用合成化学品处理它们。