Antibacterial Immune Competence of Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) Is Adapted to Different Life Stages and Environmental Risks.docVIP

AntibacterialImmuneCompetenceofHoneyBees(Apis mellifera)IsAdaptedtoDifferentLifeStagesand EnvironmentalRisks HeikeGa¨tschenberger,KlaraAzzami,Ju¨rgenTautz,HildburgBeier* BEEgroup,Biocentre,UniversityofWu¨rzburg,Wu¨rzburg,Germany Abstract The development of all honey bee castes proceeds through three different life stages all of which encounter microbial infectionstoavariousextent.Wehaveexaminedtheimmunestrengthofhoneybeesacrossalldevelopmentalstageswith emphasis on the temporal expression of cellular and humoral immune responses upon artificial challenge with viable Escherichiacolibacteria.Weemployedabroadarrayofmethodstoinvestigatedefencestrategiesofinfectedindividuals:(a) fateofbacteriainthehaemocoel;(b)noduleformationand(c)inductionofantimicrobialpeptides(AMPs).Newlyemerged adult worker bees and drones were able to activate efficiently all examined immune reactions. The number of viable bacteriacirculatinginthehaemocoelofinfectedbeesdeclinedrapidlybymorethantwoordersofmagnitudewithinthe first 4–6h post-injection (p.i.), coinciding with the occurrence of melanised nodules. Antimicrobial activity, on the other hand,becamedetectableonlyaftertheinitialbacterialclearance.Thesetwotemporalpatternsofdefencereactionsvery likelyrepresenttheconstitutivecellularandtheinducedhumoralimmuneresponse.Auniquefeatureofhoneybeesisthat afractionofworkerbeessurvivesthewinterseasoninaclustermostlyengagedinthermoregulation.Weshowherethat theoverallimmunestrengthofwinterbeesmatchesthatofyoungsummerbeesalthoughnodulationreactionsarenot initiatedatall.Asexpected,highdosesofinjectedviableE.colibacteriacausednomortalityinlarvaeoradultsofeachage. However,droneandworkerpupaesuccumbedtochallengewithE.colievenatlowdoses,accompaniedbyapremature darkening of the pupal body. In contrast to larvae and adults, we observed no fast clearance of viable bacteria and no induction of AMPs but a rapid proliferation of E.coli bacteria in the haemocoel of bee pupae ultimately leading to their death. Citation: