A Strong Immune Response in Young Adult Honeybees Masks Their Increased Susceptibility to Infection Compared to Older Bees

PLoS Pathogens

Judith K. Pell¹  Juliet L. Osborne¹  Andrew Mead²  Dave Chandler²  Gill Prince²  Cunjin Zhang²  James C. Bull³  Eugene V. Ryabov³  Laura A. Baxter⁴ 

[1] Centre for Soils and Ecosystem Function, Department of Plant and Invertebrate Ecology, Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom;School of Life Sciences and Warwick Crop Centre, University of Warwick, Wellesbourne Campus, Wellesbourne, Warwickshire, United Kingdom;School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom;Warwick Systems Biology Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom

关键词: Honey bees;    Bees;    Gene expression;    Immune response;    Fungal pathogens;    Microarrays;    Pathogens;    Insects;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1003083

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Honeybees, Apis mellifera, show age-related division of labor in which young adults perform maintenance (“housekeeping”) tasks inside the colony before switching to outside foraging at approximately 23 days old. Disease resistance is an important feature of honeybee biology, but little is known about the interaction of pathogens and age-related division of labor. We tested a hypothesis that older forager bees and younger “house” bees differ in susceptibility to infection. We coupled an infection bioassay with a functional analysis of gene expression in individual bees using a whole genome microarray. Forager bees treated with the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae s.l. survived for significantly longer than house bees. This was concomitant with substantial differences in gene expression including genes associated with immune function. In house bees, infection was associated with differential expression of 35 candidate immune genes contrasted with differential expression of only two candidate immune genes in forager bees. For control bees (i.e. not treated with M. anisopliae) the development from the house to the forager stage was associated with differential expression of 49 candidate immune genes, including up-regulation of the antimicrobial peptide gene abaecin, plus major components of the Toll pathway, serine proteases, and serpins. We infer that reduced pathogen susceptibility in forager bees was associated with age-related activation of specific immune system pathways. Our findings contrast with the view that the immunocompetence in social insects declines with the onset of foraging as a result of a trade-off in the allocation of resources for foraging. The up-regulation of immune-related genes in young adult bees in response to M. anisopliae infection was an indicator of disease susceptibility; this also challenges previous research in social insects, in which an elevated immune status has been used as a marker of increased disease resistance and fitness without considering the effects of age-related development.

【 授权许可】

CC BY