TY - JOUR A1 - Ibrahim, B. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Hufsky, F. A1 - Beer, M. A1 - Ding, L. A1 - Le Mercier, P. A1 - Palmarini, M. A1 - Thiel, V. A1 - Marz, M. T1 - A new era of virus bioinformatics N2 - Despite the recognized excellence of virology and bioinformatics, these two communities have interacted surprisingly sporadically, aside from some pioneering work on HIV-1 and influenza. Bringing together the Expertise of bioinformaticians and virologists is crucial, since very specific but fundamental computational approaches are required for virus research, particularly in an era of big data. Collaboration between virologists and bioinformaticians is necessary to improve existing analytical tools, cloud-based systems, computational resources, data sharing approaches, new diagnostic tools, and bioinformatic training. Here, we highlight current progress and discuss potential avenues for future developments in this promising era of virus bioinformatics. We end by presenting an overview of current technologies, and by outlining some of the Major challenges and Advantages that bioinformatics will bring to the field of virology. KW - Bioinformatics virology viruses software PY - 2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.virusres.2018.05.009 SN - 0168-1702 SN - 1872-7492 VL - 251 SP - 86 EP - 90 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-45880 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ibrahim, B. A1 - Arkhipova, K. A1 - Andeweg, A.C. A1 - Posada-Céspedes, S. A1 - Enault, F. A1 - Gruber, A. A1 - Koonin, E.V. A1 - Kupczok, A. A1 - Lemey, P. A1 - McHardy, A.C. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Pickett, B.E. A1 - Robertson, D.L. A1 - Scheuermann, R.H. A1 - Zhernakova, A. A1 - Zwart, M.P. A1 - Schönhuth, A. A1 - Dutilh, B.E. A1 - Marz, M. T1 - Bioinformatics meets virology: The European virus bioinformatics center's second annual meeting N2 - The Second Annual Meeting of the European Virus Bioinformatics Center (EVBC), held in Utrecht, Netherlands, focused on computational approaches in virology, with topics including (but not limited to) virus discovery, diagnostics, (meta-)genomics, modeling, epidemiology, molecular structure, evolution, and viral ecology. The goals of the Second Annual Meeting were threefold: (i) to bring together virologists and bioinformaticians from across the academic, industrial, professional, and training sectors to share best practice; (ii) to provide a meaningful and interactive scientific environment to promote discussion and collaboration between students, postdoctoral fellows, and both new and established investigators; (iii) to inspire and suggest new research directions and questions. Approximately 120 researchers from around the world attended the Second Annual Meeting of the EVBC this year, including 15 renowned international speakers. This report presents an overview of new developments and novel research findings that emerged during the meeting. KW - Bioinformatics KW - Software KW - Virology KW - Viruses PY - 2018 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-458814 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/v10050256 SN - 1999-4915 VL - 10 IS - 5 SP - 256, 1 EP - 19 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-45881 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Oberpaul, M. A1 - Spohn, M. A1 - Fracowiak, J. A1 - Plarre, Rüdiger A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Hammann, P. A1 - Vilcinskas, A. A1 - Gläser, J. T1 - Exploiting termite nest microbiomes for antibiotic discovery by using an ultra-high throughput Microfluidics/FACS driven pipeline combined with a microtiter plate based cultivation strategy N2 - Infections with multi-resistant Gram negative pathogens are a major threat to our health system. In order to serve the needs in antibiotics development we selected untapped bioresources and implemented high throughput approaches suitable for the discovery of strains producing antibiotics with anti-Gram negative activity. Our approaches rely on the hypothesis that Termite associated bacteria are likely to produce potent antibiotics to defend their hosts against entomopathogenic microorganisms. Termite nests and guts harbor suitable, highly diverse microbiomes in which bacterial taxa are present known to potentially produce natural compounds. In a first step the diversity of Coptotermes species nest microbiomes was assessed carefully by using 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq platform and nest material was selected to retrieve viable cells by using Nycodenz density gradient centrifugation. In order to analyze the diversity of the culturable termite nest microbiome, bacterial cells were either distributed in 384-well plates (approach 1) or encapsulated in small spheric agarose beads by an high throughput microfluidics technique (approach 2). Cultures obtained from approach 1 were scaled-up in 96-well Duetz-systems for characterization of diversity and for rapid supernatant screening using the bioluminescence-labeled E. coli pFU166. The generated droplets of approach 2 simultaneously received a small population of GFP-tagged Gram negative screening cells and were sorted for low fluorescence using FACS. After elimination of redundancy we performed a fast scale-up of active strains. Implementation of this pipeline allows us to prioritize antibiotics producing strains in a ultra-high throughput fashion and by cultivation of broad diversity in our approches. T2 - Annual Conference of the Society for General and Applied Microbiology (VAAM) CY - Wolfsburg, Germany DA - 15.04.18 KW - Biotechnology KW - Termites KW - Anti-microbial effects PY - 2018 AN - OPUS4-44987 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - He, Shulin A1 - Johnston, P. R. A1 - Kuropka, B. A1 - Lokatis, S. A1 - Weise, C. A1 - Plarre, Rüdiger A1 - Kunte, Hans-Jörg A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter T1 - Termite soldiers contribute to social immunity by synthesizing potent oral secretions N2 - The importance of soldiers to termite Society defence has long been recognized, but the contribution of soldiers to other societal functions, such as colony immunity, is less well understood. We explore this issue by examining the role of soldiers in protecting nestmates against pathogen infection. Even though they are unable to engage in grooming behaviour, we find that the presence of soldiers of the Darwin termite, Mastotermes darwiniensis, significantly improves the survival of nestmates following entomopathogenic infection. We also show that the copious exocrine oral secretions produced by Darwin termite soldiers contain a high concentration of Proteins involved in digestion, chemical biosynthesis, and immunity. The oral secretions produced by soldiers are sufficient to protect nestmates against infection, and they have potent inhibitory activity against a broad spectrum of microbes. Our findings support the view that soldiers may play an important role in colony immunity, and broaden our understanding of the possible function of soldiers during the origin of soldier-first societies. KW - External KW - Social KW - Immunity KW - Soldier KW - Antimicrobial KW - Proteome PY - 2018 DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/imb.12499 SN - 1365-2583 SN - 0962-1075 VL - 27 IS - 5 SP - 564 EP - 576 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford AN - OPUS4-45726 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Franz, Mathias A1 - Armitage, Sophie A.O. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Subasi, Bengisu S. A1 - Rafaluk, Charlotte T1 - Trade-offs in virulence evolution: a Hierarchy-of-Hypotheses approach N2 - Understanding the evolution of virulence, that is, the harm pathogens cause their hosts, has major and wide-spread repercussions. A central concept of virulence evolution is the so-called ‘trade-off hypothesis’, a seemingly straightforward relationship between virulence and transmission. However, substantial ambiguity in terminology related to this hypothesis threatens progress in the field. To address this, we apply a Hierarchy-of-Hypotheses approach to provide structured, visual representations of ideas linked to this hypothesis. We illustrate that the trade-off hypothesis is a complex set of many different hypotheses and trade-offs, and we clarify ambiguities and biases in commonly used terminology in the literature. Thereby, we hope to facilitate a more precise understanding of what the trade-off hypothesis means, enabling more targeted and precise hypothesis testing. KW - Pathogen virulence KW - Trade-off KW - Trade-off hypothesis KW - Virulence evolution PY - 2025 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pt.2025.01.006 SN - 1471-5007 VL - 41 IS - 3 SP - 188 EP - 195 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-62620 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Shafiey, Hassan A1 - Gogol-Döring, Andreas A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Doublet, Vincent A1 - Disayathanoowat, Terd A1 - Paxton, Robert J. T1 - A new variant of slow bee paralysis virus revealed by transcriptome analysis N2 - Using NGS data from an RNA-seq library, we reveal a novel variant of slow bee paralysis virus (SBPV) in a pooled sample of adult honey bees (Apis mellifera) collected in southwest Germany. We provide its sequence (NCBI Accession No. PP100271) and demonstrate that it is infective for adult honey bees by feeding. KW - SBPV KW - Apis mellifera KW - +ss RNA virus KW - Iflaviridae KW - Transmission KW - NGS PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-620900 DO - https://doi.org/10.1080/00218839.2024.2425912 SP - 1 EP - 5 PB - Taylor & Francis AN - OPUS4-62090 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - da Silva, Luiza Helena Bueno A1 - Goes, Aryel C. A1 - Rodrigues, Andre A1 - Fourcassié, Vincent A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Haifig, Ives T1 - Social immune response reflects infection progression in a soldierless termite N2 - Social interactions represent a double-edged sword. On one hand, sociality can facilitate sanitary collective behaviours; on the other hand, it creates opportunities for pathogen transmission. In termites, sanitary behaviours can entail a rescuing strategy at early stages of infection, followed by the elimination at later stages. We explored whether the neotropical soldierless species Anoplotermes pacificus employs a progressive approach towards infected nestmates, with different behavioural displays depending on the infection stage. We infected A. pacificus workers with the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae and incubated them for 2, 12, 15 and 20 h, corresponding to infection progression and, therefore, severity. Infected termites were placed with naïve nestmates and their behaviours were recorded for 3 h. Fungus-infected termites triggered up to fourfold higher levels of sanitary behaviour than in non-infected termites. Antennation behaviour decreased during the observation period, whereas sanitary behaviour, which we defined as directed behaviour towards the focal termite involving mouthparts, increased in frequency as incubation duration increased. Sanitary behaviour therefore appears to be a strategy for colony disinfection, which varies in intensity according to infection status, ultimately resulting in the immobilisation of infected individuals at later stages of infection. Alarm responses were also up to three times more frequent in treatment than in control groups and did not vary with incubation duration. A. pacificus workers therefore identify, communicate and respond to pathogen-treated individuals in a progressive manner, indicating that collective responses in this species are also significantly shaped by the stage of infection. By progressively modulating their social immune responses, termites may be able to optimize resource allocation within the colony by balancing the risk of individual infection versus protection of the group. KW - Anoplotermes pacificus KW - Isoptera KW - Infection KW - Metarhizium KW - Social immunity PY - 2024 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03556-2 VL - 79 IS - 1 SP - 1 PB - Springer Science and Business Media LLC AN - OPUS4-62397 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Natsopoulou, M.E. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Doublet, V. A1 - Bryden, J. A1 - Paxton, R.J. T1 - Interspecific competition in honeybee intracellular gut parasites is asymmetric and favours the spread of an emerging infectious disease N2 - There is increasing appreciation that hosts in natural populations are subject to infection by multiple parasite species. Yet the epidemiological and ecological processes determining the outcome of mixed infections are poorly understood. Here, we use two intracellular gut parasites (Microsporidia), one exotic and one co-evolved in the western honeybee (Apis mellifera), in an experiment in which either one or both parasites were administered either simultaneously or sequentially. We provide clear evidence of within-host competition; order of infection was an important determinant of the competitive outcome between parasites, with the first parasite significantly inhibiting the growth of the second, regardless of species. However, the strength of this 'priority effect' was highly asymmetric, with the exotic Nosema ceranae exhibiting stronger inhibition of Nosema apis than vice versa. Our results reveal an unusual asymmetry in parasite competition that is dependent on order of infection. When incorporated into a mathematical model of disease prevalence, we find asymmetric competition to be an important predictor of the patterns of parasite prevalence found in nature. Our findings demonstrate the wider significance of complex multi-host–multi-parasite interactions as drivers of host–pathogen community structure. KW - Apis mellifera KW - Microsporidia KW - Host KW - Parasite KW - Co-infection KW - Priority effect PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2014.1896 SN - 1471-2954 SN - 0950-1193 SN - 0080-4649 SN - 0962-8452 VL - 282 SP - 20141896, 1 EP - 8 PB - Royal Soc. of London CY - London AN - OPUS4-32883 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fürst, M.A. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Osborne, J.L. A1 - Paxton, R.J. A1 - Brown, M.J.F. T1 - Disease associations between honeybees and bumblebees as a threat to wild pollinators N2 - Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) pose a risk to human welfare, both directly1 and indirectly, by affecting managed livestock and wildlife that provide valuable resources and ecosystem services, such as the pollination of crops2. Honeybees (Apis mellifera), the prevailing managed insect crop pollinator, suffer from a range of emerging and exotic high-impact pathogens3,4, and population maintenance requires active management by beekeepers to control them. Wild pollinators such as bumblebees (Bombus spp.) are in global decline5,6, one cause of which may be pathogen spillover from managed pollinators like honeybees7,8 or commercial colonies of bumblebees9. Here we use a combination of infection experiments and landscape-scale field data to show that honeybee EIDs are indeed widespread infectious agents within the pollinator assemblage. The prevalence of deformed wing virus (DWV) and the exotic parasite Nosema ceranae in honeybees and bumblebees is linked; as honeybees have higher DWV prevalence, and sympatric bumblebees and honeybees are infected by the same DWV strains, Apis is the likely source of at least one major EID in wild pollinators. Lessons learned from vertebrates10,11 highlight the need for increased pathogen control in managed bee species to maintain wild pollinators, as declines in native pollinators may be caused by interspecies pathogen transmission originating from managed pollinators. PY - 2014 DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12977 SN - 0028-0836 SN - 1476-4687 VL - 506 SP - 364 EP - 366 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London AN - OPUS4-32884 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Fürst, M.A. A1 - Caspar, J. A1 - Theodorou, P. A1 - Brown, M.J.F. A1 - Paxton, R.J. T1 - A sting in the spit: widespread cross-infection of multiple RNA viruses across wild and managed bees N2 - 1.Declining populations of bee pollinators are a cause of concern, with major repercussions for biodiversity loss and food security. RNA viruses associated with honeybees represent a potential threat to other insect pollinators, but the extent of this threat is poorly understood. 2.This study aims to attain a detailed understanding of the current and ongoing risk of emerging infectious disease (EID) transmission between managed and wild pollinator species across a wide range of RNA viruses. 3.Within a structured large-scale national survey across 26 independent sites, we quantify the prevalence and pathogen loads of multiple RNA viruses in co-occurring managed honeybee (Apis mellifera) and wild bumblebee (Bombus spp.) populations. We then construct models that compare virus prevalence between wild and managed pollinators. 4.Multiple RNA viruses associated with honeybees are widespread in sympatric wild bumblebee populations. Virus prevalence in honeybees is a significant predictor of virus prevalence in bumblebees, but we remain cautious in speculating over the principle direction of pathogen transmission. We demonstrate species-specific differences in prevalence, indicating significant variation in disease susceptibility or tolerance. Pathogen loads within individual bumblebees may be high and in the case of at least one RNA virus, prevalence is higher in wild bumblebees than in managed honeybee populations. 5.Our findings indicate widespread transmission of RNA viruses between managed and wild bee pollinators, pointing to an interconnected network of potential disease pressures within and among pollinator species. In the context of the biodiversity crisis, our study emphasizes the importance of targeting a wide range of pathogens and defining host associations when considering potential drivers of population decline. KW - Apis KW - Bombus KW - Decline KW - Pathogen KW - Spillover PY - 2015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12345 SN - 1365-2656 SN - 0021-8790 VL - 84 SP - 615 EP - 624 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford [u.a.] AN - OPUS4-32885 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mayack, C. A1 - Natsopoulou, M.E. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter T1 - Nosema ceranae alters a highly conserved hormonal stress pathway in honeybees N2 - Nosema ceranae, an emerging pathogen of the western honeybee (Apis mellifera), is implicated in recent pollinator losses and causes severe energetic stress. However, whether precocious foraging and accelerated behavioural maturation in infected bees are caused by the infection itself or via indirect energetic stress remains unknown. Using a combination of nutritional and infection treatments, we investigated how starvation and infection alters the regulation of adipokinetic hormone (AKH) and octopamine, two highly conserved physiological pathways that respond to energetic stress by mobilizing fat stores and increasing search activity for food. Although there was no response from AKH when bees were experimentally infected with N. ceranae or starved, supporting the notion that honeybees have lost this pathway, there were significant regulatory changes in the octopamine pathway. Significantly, we found no evidence of acute energetic stress being the only cause of symptoms associated with N. ceranae infection. Therefore, the parasite itself appears to alter regulatory components along a highly conserved physiological pathway in an infection-specific manner. This indicates that pathogen-induced behavioural alteration of chronically infected bees should not just be viewed as a coincidental short-term by-product of pathogenesis (acute energetic stress) and may be a result of a generalist manipulation strategy to obtain energy for reproduction. KW - Octopamine KW - Adipokinetic hormone (AKH) KW - Apis mellifera KW - Energetic stress KW - Starvation KW - Hunger PY - 2015 DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/imb.12190 SN - 0962-1075 SN - 1365-2583 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Blackwell CY - Oxford AN - OPUS4-34168 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter T1 - Termite Immunity (a molecular perspective) N2 - In this presentation, an overview of the termite immune system is given. The presentation covers the mechanistic underpinnings of the canonical immune pathways in insects; where there are areas of conservation or divergence in termites, as well as briefly going over some key gaps in knowledge. External immune capabilities are discussed as well as the implications and consequences of sociality for the evolution of collective immune defense systems in termites. T2 - International Termite Course (ITC) 2025 CY - Davie, FL, USA DA - 10.06.2025 KW - Termite KW - Immunity KW - Molecular KW - Evolution PY - 2025 AN - OPUS4-64745 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Natsopoulou, M. E. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Doublet, V. A1 - Frey, E. A1 - Rosenkranz, P. A1 - Paxton, R. J. T1 - The virulent, emerging genotype B of Deformed wing virus is closely linked to overwinter honeybee worker loss N2 - Bees are considered to be threatened globally, with severe overwinter losses of the most important commercial pollinator, the Western honeybee, a major concern in the Northern Hemisphere. Emerging infectious diseases have risen to prominence due to their temporal correlation with colony losses. Among these is Deformed wing virus (DWV), which has been frequently linked to colony mortality. We now provide evidence of a strong statistical association between overwintering colony decline in the field and the presence of DWV genotype-B (DWV-B), a genetic variant of DWV that has recently been shown to be more virulent than the original DWV genotype-A. We link the prevalence of DWV-B directly to a quantitative measure of overwinter decline (workforce mortality) of honeybee colonies in the field. We demonstrate that increased prevalence of virus infection in individual bees is associated with higher overwinter mortality. We also observed a substantial reduction of infected colonies in the spring, suggesting that virus-infected individuals had died during the winter. Our findings demonstrate that DWV-B, plus possible A/B recombinants exhibiting DWV-B at PCR primer binding sites, may be a major cause of elevated overwinter honeybee loss. Its potential emergence in naïve populations of bees may have far-reaching ecological and economic impacts. KW - Honeybee KW - Loss KW - Virulence KW - Virus PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-410446 DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05596-3 SN - 2045-2322 IS - 7 SP - 5242, 1 EP - 5242, 9 AN - OPUS4-41044 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Doublet, V. A1 - Poeschl, Y. A1 - Gogol-Döring, A. A1 - Alaux, C. A1 - Annoscia, D. A1 - Aurori, C. A1 - Barribeau, S. M. A1 - Bedoya-Reina, O. C. A1 - Brown, M. J. F. A1 - Bull, J. C. A1 - Flenniken, M. L. A1 - Galbraith, D. A. A1 - Genersch, E. A1 - Gisder, S. A1 - Grosse, I. A1 - Holt, H. L. A1 - Hultmark, D. A1 - Lattorff, H. M. G. A1 - Le Conte, Y. A1 - Manfredini, F. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Moritz, R. F. A. A1 - Nazzi, F. A1 - Niño, E. L. A1 - Nowick, K. A1 - Van Rij, R. P. A1 - Paxton, R. J. A1 - Grozinger, C. M. T1 - Unity in defence: honeybee workers exhibit conserved molecular responses to diverse pathogens N2 - Background: Organisms typically face infection by diverse pathogens, and hosts are thought to have developed specific responses to each type of pathogen they encounter. The advent of transcriptomics now makes it possible to test this hypothesis and compare host gene expression responses to multiple pathogens at a genome-wide scale. Here, we performed a meta-analysis of multiple published and new transcriptomes using a newly developed bioinformatics approach that filters genes based on their expression profile across datasets. Thereby, we identified common and unique molecular responses of a model host species, the honey bee (Apis mellifera), to its major pathogens and parasites: the Microsporidia Nosema apis and Nosema ceranae, RNA viruses, and the ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructor, which transmits viruses. Results: We identified a common suite of genes and conserved molecular pathways that respond to all investigated pathogens, a result that suggests a commonality in response mechanisms to diverse pathogens. We found that genes differentially expressed after infection exhibit a higher evolutionary rate than non-differentially expressed genes. Using our new bioinformatics approach, we unveiled additional pathogen-specific responses of honey bees; we found that apoptosis appeared to be an important response following microsporidian infection, while genes from the immune signalling pathways, Toll and Imd, were differentially expressed after Varroa/virus infection. Finally, we applied our bioinformatics approach and generated a gene co-expression network to identify highly connected (hub) genes that may represent important mediators and regulators of anti-pathogen responses. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis generated a comprehensive overview of the host metabolic and other biological processes that mediate interactions between insects and their pathogens. We identified key host genes and pathways that respond to phylogenetically diverse pathogens, representing an important source for future functional studies as well as offering new routes to identify or generate pathogen resilient honey bee stocks. The statistical and bioinformatics approaches that were developed for this study are broadly applicable to synthesize information across transcriptomic datasets. These approaches will likely have utility in addressing a variety of biological questions. KW - Coexpression KW - Apis mellifera KW - Nosema KW - Varroa destructor KW - DWV KW - IAPV KW - RNA virus KW - Meta-analysis KW - Transcriptomics PY - 2017 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-410439 DO - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-017-3597-6 SN - 1471-2164 VL - 18 SP - 207 EP - 224 AN - OPUS4-41043 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, U. A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter A1 - Rolff, J. T1 - Exposure of the wild bee Osmia bicornis to the honey bee pathogen Nosema ceranae N2 - Wild bees are important pollinators for agricultural crops and solitary species such as Osmia bicornis are particularly suitable for pollination management. Wild bees share floral resources with managed honey bees and may be exposed to emerging infectious diseases. Although studies have explored the prevalence of pathogens in solitary wild bee species, data regarding the impact of pathogens on solitary bee health are lacking. We carried out experiments examining whether the solitary bee species O. bicornis is susceptible to infection with the emerging pathogen The results obtained indicate that N. ceranae may be able to infect O. bicornis but its impact on host fitness is negligible: survival rates did not differ between Control and inoculated bees, although male survival was marginally lower after infection. To explore the possible field-relevance of our findings, we collected wild bees near an infected and a non-infected hive and showed that N. ceranae was shared between managed and wild bees, although only the in presence of infected honey bees. The findings of the present study show that O. bicornis is susceptible to pathogen spillover and could act as a potential reservoir host for N. ceranae in pollinator networks. Additional studies on this species incorporating sublethal effects, multiple infections and other interacting stressors are warranted. KW - Wild bees KW - Nosema ceranae KW - Osmia bicornis KW - Pathogen spillover KW - Survival rates PY - 2019 DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/afe.12338 SN - 1461-9555 SN - 1461-9563 VL - 21 IS - 4 SP - 363 EP - 371 PB - Wiley AN - OPUS4-49648 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - McMahon, Dino Peter T1 - The evolution of termite immunity N2 - A broad suite of immune adaptations have evolved in social insects which hold close parallels with the immune systems of multicellular individuals. However, comparatively little is known about the evolutionary origins of immunity in social insects. We tackle this by identifying immune genes from 18 cockroach and termite species, spanning a gradient of social lifestyles. Termites have undergone contractions of major immune gene families during the early origin of the group, particularly in antimicrobial effector and receptor proteins, followed by later re-expansions in some lineages. In a comparative gene expression analysis, we find that reproductive individuals of a termite invest more in innate immune regulation than other castes. When colonies encounter immune-challenged nestmates, gene expression responses are weak in reproductives but this pattern is reversed when colony members are immune-challenged individually, with reproductives eliciting a greater response to treatment than other castes. Finally, responses to immune challenge were more comprehensive in both subsocial and solitary cockroaches compared to termites, indicating a reduced overall ability to respond to infection in termites. Our study indicates that the emergence of termite sociality was associated with the evolution of a tapered yet caste-adapted immune system. T2 - 112th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society CY - Jena, Germany DA - 10.09.2019 KW - Social KW - E$volution KW - Termite KW - Immunity PY - 2019 AN - OPUS4-49646 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -