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Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease

We report on aerobic “environmental” bacteria isolated from European honey bees (Apis mellifera). We determined the number of culturable aerobic bacteria in the gut of nurse bees sampled from locations around Australia. Bees from healthy colonies had 10(7)–10(8) aerobic bacteria per g of bee gut, wh...

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Autores principales: Khan, Sheba, Somerville, Doug, Frese, Michael, Nayudu, Murali
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7455043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32857797
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238252
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author Khan, Sheba
Somerville, Doug
Frese, Michael
Nayudu, Murali
author_facet Khan, Sheba
Somerville, Doug
Frese, Michael
Nayudu, Murali
author_sort Khan, Sheba
collection PubMed
description We report on aerobic “environmental” bacteria isolated from European honey bees (Apis mellifera). We determined the number of culturable aerobic bacteria in the gut of nurse bees sampled from locations around Australia. Bees from healthy colonies had 10(7)–10(8) aerobic bacteria per g of bee gut, while bees from colonies with chalkbrood consistently had significantly fewer bacteria (10(4)–10(5) bacteria per g). When colonies recovered from chalkbrood, bacterial numbers returned to normal levels, suggesting that counting aerobic bacteria in the gut could be used to predict an outbreak of the disease. Furthermore, Western Australian bees from the “Better Bees” program (bred to promote hygienic behaviour) had significantly higher numbers of aerobic gut bacteria compared to regular bees from healthy colonies. Bacteria with the ability to inhibit the chalkbrood pathogen were found in most bees from regular colonies (> 60%) but only in a few “Better Bees” (10%). Phylogenetic analysis of aerobic bacterial isolates that inhibited the chalkbrood pathogen revealed a close relationship (>97% sequence identity) to the genera Bacillus, Klebsiella, Pantoea, Hafnia, and Enterobacter (bacteria that have previously been isolated from honey bees), but we also isolated Maccrococcus and Frigoribacterium species (bacteria that were not previously identified in bees). Finally, we investigated the ability of bacteria to inhibit the chalkbrood fungus Ascosphaera apis. Mass spectroscopy analysis revealed that the bee gut isolates Frigoribacterium sp. and Bacillus senegalensis produce gluconic acid. We further found that this simple sugar is involved in chalkbrood fungal hyphal lysis and cytoplasmic leakage. Our findings suggest that “environmental” gut bacteria may help bees to control the chalkbrood pathogen.
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spelling pubmed-74550432020-09-02 Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease Khan, Sheba Somerville, Doug Frese, Michael Nayudu, Murali PLoS One Research Article We report on aerobic “environmental” bacteria isolated from European honey bees (Apis mellifera). We determined the number of culturable aerobic bacteria in the gut of nurse bees sampled from locations around Australia. Bees from healthy colonies had 10(7)–10(8) aerobic bacteria per g of bee gut, while bees from colonies with chalkbrood consistently had significantly fewer bacteria (10(4)–10(5) bacteria per g). When colonies recovered from chalkbrood, bacterial numbers returned to normal levels, suggesting that counting aerobic bacteria in the gut could be used to predict an outbreak of the disease. Furthermore, Western Australian bees from the “Better Bees” program (bred to promote hygienic behaviour) had significantly higher numbers of aerobic gut bacteria compared to regular bees from healthy colonies. Bacteria with the ability to inhibit the chalkbrood pathogen were found in most bees from regular colonies (> 60%) but only in a few “Better Bees” (10%). Phylogenetic analysis of aerobic bacterial isolates that inhibited the chalkbrood pathogen revealed a close relationship (>97% sequence identity) to the genera Bacillus, Klebsiella, Pantoea, Hafnia, and Enterobacter (bacteria that have previously been isolated from honey bees), but we also isolated Maccrococcus and Frigoribacterium species (bacteria that were not previously identified in bees). Finally, we investigated the ability of bacteria to inhibit the chalkbrood fungus Ascosphaera apis. Mass spectroscopy analysis revealed that the bee gut isolates Frigoribacterium sp. and Bacillus senegalensis produce gluconic acid. We further found that this simple sugar is involved in chalkbrood fungal hyphal lysis and cytoplasmic leakage. Our findings suggest that “environmental” gut bacteria may help bees to control the chalkbrood pathogen. Public Library of Science 2020-08-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7455043/ /pubmed/32857797 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238252 Text en © 2020 Khan et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Khan, Sheba
Somerville, Doug
Frese, Michael
Nayudu, Murali
Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
title Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
title_full Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
title_fullStr Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
title_full_unstemmed Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
title_short Environmental gut bacteria in European honey bees (Apis mellifera) from Australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
title_sort environmental gut bacteria in european honey bees (apis mellifera) from australia and their relationship to the chalkbrood disease
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7455043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32857797
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238252
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