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Metabolomics-based biomarker discovery for bee health monitoring: A proof of concept study concerning nutritional stress in Bombus terrestris
Bee pollinators are exposed to multiple natural and anthropogenic stressors. Understanding the effects of a single stressor in the complex environmental context of antagonistic/synergistic interactions is critical to pollinator monitoring and may serve as early warning system before a pollination cr...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6684606/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31388077 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-47896-w |
Sumario: | Bee pollinators are exposed to multiple natural and anthropogenic stressors. Understanding the effects of a single stressor in the complex environmental context of antagonistic/synergistic interactions is critical to pollinator monitoring and may serve as early warning system before a pollination crisis. This study aimed to methodically improve the diagnosis of bee stressors using a simultaneous untargeted and targeted metabolomics-based approach. Analysis of 84 Bombus terrestris hemolymph samples found 8 metabolites retained as potential biomarkers that showed excellent discrimination for nutritional stress. In parallel, 8 significantly altered metabolites, as revealed by targeted profiling, were also assigned as candidate biomarkers. Furthermore, machine learning algorithms were applied to the above-described two biomarker sets, whereby the untargeted eight components showed the best classification performance with sensitivity and specificity up to 99% and 100%, respectively. Based on pathway and biochemistry analysis, we propose that gluconeogenesis contributed significantly to blood sugar stability in bumblebees maintained on a low carbohydrate diet. Taken together, this study demonstrates that metabolomics-based biomarker discovery holds promising potential for improving bee health monitoring and to identify stressor related to energy intake and other environmental stressors. |
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