Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees

Fumagillin is the only antibiotic approved for control of nosema disease in honey bees and has been extensively used in United States apiculture for more than 50 years for control of Nosema apis. It is toxic to mammals and must be applied seasonally and with caution to avoid residues in honey. Fumag...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Huang, Wei-Fone, Solter, Leellen F., Yau, Peter M., Imai, Brian S.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2013
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591333/

id	pubmed-3591333
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-35913332013-03-15 Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees Huang, Wei-Fone Solter, Leellen F. Yau, Peter M. Imai, Brian S. Research Article Fumagillin is the only antibiotic approved for control of nosema disease in honey bees and has been extensively used in United States apiculture for more than 50 years for control of Nosema apis. It is toxic to mammals and must be applied seasonally and with caution to avoid residues in honey. Fumagillin degrades or is diluted in hives over the foraging season, exposing bees and the microsporidia to declining concentrations of the drug. We showed that spore production by Nosema ceranae, an emerging microsporidian pathogen in honey bees, increased in response to declining fumagillin concentrations, up to 100% higher than that of infected bees that have not been exposed to fumagillin. N. apis spore production was also higher, although not significantly so. Fumagillin inhibits the enzyme methionine aminopeptidase2 (MetAP2) in eukaryotic cells and interferes with protein modifications necessary for normal cell function. We sequenced the MetAP2 gene for apid Nosema species and determined that, although susceptibility to fumagillin differs among species, there are no apparent differences in fumagillin binding sites. Protein assays of uninfected bees showed that fumagillin altered structural and metabolic proteins in honey bee midgut tissues at concentrations that do not suppress microsporidia reproduction. The microsporidia, particularly N. ceranae, are apparently released from the suppressive effects of fumagillin at concentrations that continue to impact honey bee physiology. The current application protocol for fumagillin may exacerbate N. ceranae infection rather than suppress it. Public Library of Science 2013-03-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3591333/ /pubmed/23505365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1003185 Text en © 2013 Huang 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, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Huang, Wei-Fone Solter, Leellen F. Yau, Peter M. Imai, Brian S.
spellingShingle	Huang, Wei-Fone Solter, Leellen F. Yau, Peter M. Imai, Brian S. Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees
author_facet	Huang, Wei-Fone Solter, Leellen F. Yau, Peter M. Imai, Brian S.
author_sort	Huang, Wei-Fone
title	Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees
title_short	Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees
title_full	Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees
title_fullStr	Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees
title_full_unstemmed	Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees
title_sort	nosema ceranae escapes fumagillin control in honey bees
description	Fumagillin is the only antibiotic approved for control of nosema disease in honey bees and has been extensively used in United States apiculture for more than 50 years for control of Nosema apis. It is toxic to mammals and must be applied seasonally and with caution to avoid residues in honey. Fumagillin degrades or is diluted in hives over the foraging season, exposing bees and the microsporidia to declining concentrations of the drug. We showed that spore production by Nosema ceranae, an emerging microsporidian pathogen in honey bees, increased in response to declining fumagillin concentrations, up to 100% higher than that of infected bees that have not been exposed to fumagillin. N. apis spore production was also higher, although not significantly so. Fumagillin inhibits the enzyme methionine aminopeptidase2 (MetAP2) in eukaryotic cells and interferes with protein modifications necessary for normal cell function. We sequenced the MetAP2 gene for apid Nosema species and determined that, although susceptibility to fumagillin differs among species, there are no apparent differences in fumagillin binding sites. Protein assays of uninfected bees showed that fumagillin altered structural and metabolic proteins in honey bee midgut tissues at concentrations that do not suppress microsporidia reproduction. The microsporidia, particularly N. ceranae, are apparently released from the suppressive effects of fumagillin at concentrations that continue to impact honey bee physiology. The current application protocol for fumagillin may exacerbate N. ceranae infection rather than suppress it.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2013
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591333/
_version_	1611960646208847872

Nosema ceranae Escapes Fumagillin Control in Honey Bees

Similar Items