ArticlePLoS pathogens2012
A strong immune response in young adult honeybees masks their increased susceptibility to infection compared to older bees.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 96 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Clodronate liposomes untangle the role of hemocytes inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Behavioural individuality determines infection risk in clonal ant colonies.Nature communications · 2023Article
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- Susceptibility of the Western Honey Bee Apis mellifera and the African Stingless Bee Meliponula ferruginea (Hymenoptera: Apidae) to the Entomopathogenic Fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana.Journal of economic entomology · 2022Article
- Organ-specific transcriptome analysis reveals differential gene expression in different castes under natural conditions in Apis cerana.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Pupal cannibalism by worker honey bees contributes to the spread of deformed wing virus.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Exposure to low doses of pesticides induces an immune response and the production of nitric oxide in honeybees.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Comparing Survival of Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus Infection among Stocks of U.S. Honey Bees.Insects · 2021Article
- A salivary chitinase of Varroa destructor influences host immunity and mite's survival.PLoS pathogens · 2020Article
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- Codon optimization, expression inPeerJ · 2020Article
- Influence of chronic exposure to thiamethoxam and chronic bee paralysis virus on winter honey bees.PloS one · 2019Article
- Highly specific host-pathogen interactions influence Metarhizium brunneum blastospore virulence against Culex quinquefasciatus larvae.Virulence · 2018Article
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- Virus and dsRNA-triggered transcriptional responses reveal key components of honey bee antiviral defense.Scientific reports · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.