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

蜜蜂作为授粉者在植物和作物高效授粉以促进全球粮食生产方面发挥着关键作用。蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）的管理殖民地提供了全球农业中近90%的商业授粉服务，使蜜蜂成为最重要的牲畜之一。蜜蜂对加拿大的粮食生产至关重要，其授粉服务每年产生的价值估计为20亿美元。这些昆虫正面临着一系列的威胁，从吸血螨和有害微生物，到杀虫剂和气候变化。因此，蜜蜂的健康是至关重要的全球相关性和研究导致蜜蜂疾病的理解和治疗，如美国Foulbrood（AFB）被认为是至关重要的。AFB是最常见和最具破坏性的蜜蜂育雏疾病，由幼虫类芽孢杆菌引起，幼虫类芽孢杆菌是一种革兰氏阳性的孢子形成细菌，已成为蜜蜂病原体。通过对病原体的非抗性菌株的抗生素治疗来控制幼虫疟原虫，尽管存在开发替代治疗策略的推力，包括天然抗微生物化合物，例如来自各种植物的油。重要的是，对盐酸土霉素（土霉素）的耐药性正在上升，迫切需要新的策略，如新的抗病力方法来预防和控制AFB。圭尔夫大学的梅里尔博士将与加拿大先正达公司合作，开发治疗蜜蜂AFB的有效化合物，特别关注作为治疗蜜蜂病原体的天然产品。梅里尔博士的团队已经开发出一种快速而强大的策略，用于发现和表征针对细菌毒素的新型疗法，他们正在使用这种方法来识别新的抗菌化合物 具有完全不同的作用机制，这代表了一种创新的治疗概念。到目前为止，梅里尔团队已经确定了一套有效的抑制剂，针对AFB的病原体，幼虫类芽孢杆菌及其相关的毒力因子（毒素），用于对抗这种蜜蜂育雏病。这些抑制剂在体外和细胞培养中都能对抗毒素。需要进行实地研究以测试其功效

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