Engineered symbionts activate honey bee immunity and limit pathogens

Honey bees are essential pollinators threatened by colony losses linked to the spread of parasites and pathogens. Here, we report a new approach for manipulating bee gene expression and protecting bee health. We engineered a symbiotic bee gut bacterium, Snodgrassella alvi, to induce eukaryotic RNA interference (RNAi) immune responses. We show that engineered S. alvi can stably recolonize bees and produce double-stranded RNA to activate RNAi and repress host gene expression, thereby altering bee physiology, behavior, and growth. We used this approach to improve bee survival after a viral challenge, and we show that engineered S. alvi can kill parasitic Varroa mites by triggering the mite RNAi response. This symbiont-mediated RNAi approach is a tool for studying bee functional genomics and potentially for safeguarding bee health.

Source: ScienceNOW - January 29, 2020 Category: Science Authors: Leonard, S. P., Powell, J. E., Perutka, J., Geng, P., Heckmann, L. C., Horak, R. D., Davies, B. W., Ellington, A. D., Barrick, J. E., Moran, N. A. Tags: Microbiology, Molecular Biology reports Source Type: news