Effect of transient exposure to carbaryl wettable powder on the gut microbial community of honey bees

Abstract

Bees are important pollinators in agriculture. The bee population has recently begun to decline possibly due to pesticides. The bee gut microbiota strongly influences the health of bees. The gut microbiota of bees is composed of distinct members belonging to selective taxa. Chemicals like pesticides can alter the gut microbiota. The present study investigated the effect of carbaryl pesticides on gut microbiota of honey bees, which had come in contact with rapeseed plants (Brassica napus) sprayed with carbaryl wettable powder during the honey bee brood test under semifield condition. Molecular techniques (conventional and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR), clone library method, and DNA sequencing) were employed to analyze changes in the microbial communities between the pesticide-exposed and unexposed bees. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA genes of the clones from both groups, showed differences in their respective compositions of core and non-core bacteria. Both groups contained carbohydratedegrading bacteria such as Gilliamella apicola and Lactobacillus. However, the unexposed bees harbored Alphaproteobacteria, which were absent in the exposed bees. Microorganisms found in honey bee guts such as Snodgrassella alvi and L. kullabergensis, however, were observed only in the exposed bees, but not in the unexposed bees. The difference between the two groups was distinctly recognized when copy numbers of 16S rRNA genes were compared by quantitative PCR. Results showed that the average gene copy number for the unexposed bees was higher than that for the exposed bees. This may indicate the toxic effect of pesticides on bees and gut microbiota. which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) gut microbiota promotes host endogenous detoxification capability via regulation of P450 gene expression in the digestive tract

“…Thus, the combinatory effects of antibiotics and pesticides in field colonies remain to be determined. Moreover, it is worth studying the impact on honey bee detoxification of other chemicals (Kakumanu et al , 2016; Motta et al , 2018; Nogrado et al , 2019), that also perturb the gut microbial balance in honey bees.…”

Metabolic Engineering of Escherichia coli for the Production of Hyaluronic Acid From Glucose and Galactose

“…In E. coli , the galR, galS, zwf , and pfkA genes were knocked-out by the modified one-step inactivation method (Song and Lee, 2013). First, the linear DNA fragments for gene knockout were prepared by two-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR; MiniAmp TM Thermal Cycler, Thermo Fisher, Singapore), using template plasmid pMtrc9 (Kim et al, 2008; Nogrado et al, 2019) containing the lox66-cat-lox71 cassette. For example, to construct the linear DNA fragments for knockout of the galR gene, primers galR-KO-F1, galR-KO-R1, galR-KO-F2, and gal-KO-R2 were used (Supplementary Table 1).…”

Deteriorating microbiomes in agriculture - the unintended effects of pesticides on microbial life

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