Like humans, bees introduce their offspring to pathogens in small concentrations so their immune system can develop a resistance to it. But the bees’ delivery system is quite different. How could this possibly work?
Advertisement
These days, however, bees face less predictable challenges from human activities, such as pesticide use and sudden widespread transfer of plants/crops and bee pests, as well as climate change factors and other threats.
Scientists have yet to discover any bees that are opposed to this form of mandatory vaccination, but they do note that this process certainly does not protect bees against all diseases. This is manufactured from pollen and nectar, gathered by forager bees. The bacterium infects bee larvae as they ingest food contaminated with its spores.
Once consumed, the bacteria are digested in her gut and wind up stored in the queen’s “fat body”, which is an organ similar to a liver. After this happens, pieces of the pathogen binds to the aforementioned protein and then get transferred to babies through blood and blood protein. This is how the bee babies are “vaccinated” and can better fight local diseases, according to the release. “This exemplifies how long-term investments in basic research pay off”. Knowing the path by which genetic information passes from the outside world, through the queen and into the bee population as a whole, could allow researchers to design new edible vaccines for the insects. They would then be able to stave off disease, said Dalial Freitak, a postdoctoral researcher from the University of Helsinki, stated in a press release. During the past six decades alone, managed honeybee colonies in the United States have declined from 6 million in 1947 to only 2.5 million today.
If bees failed to pollinate the crops, food supply would dwindle in the years to come. Insect vaccines could play an important role in helping to combat colony collapse disorder, in addition to fighting a variety of diseases.
They also suggest that the discovery could extend to other species throughout the animal kingdom. Just today, however, a study from researchers at Arizona State University was published in the PLOS journal that highlights the process of food vaccination. “It has the potential to both improve and secure food production for humans”, said Amdam. All egg-laying animals have the vitellogenin protein in their bodies, including fish, poultry, reptiles, amphibians and other insects.
Advertisement
ASU School of Life Sciences is an academic unit of ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
