ArticleScientific reports2021
Screening bioactive food compounds in honey bees suggests curcumin blocks alcohol-induced damage to longevity and DNA methylation.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Honey bees are resilient to the long-term presence of alcohol in their diet.Ecotoxicology (London, England) · 2025Article
- Nature's blueprint for sugar metabolism: translating bee and ant strategies into human diabetes therapies.Diabetology & metabolic syndrome · 2025Review
- Exploring curcumin and rosmarinic acid as potential antidotes for pesticide-induced harm to honey bees.Frontiers in insect science · 2025Article
- Occasional and constant exposure to dietary ethanol shortens the lifespan of worker honey bees.Journal of comparative physiology. B, Biochemical, systemic, and environmental physiology · 2024Article
- Quantification of DNA Methylation by ELISA in Epigenetic Studies in Plant Tissue Culture: A Theoretical-Practical Guide.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2024Article
- DNA Methylation in Alcohol Use Disorder.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- The impact of curcumin on livestock and poultry animal's performance and management of insect pests.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2023Review
- A collective analysis of lifespan-extending compounds in diverse model organisms, and of species whose lifespan can be extended the most by the application of compounds.Biogerontology · 2021Article
- Honeybees show an increased preference for dietary alcohol when parasitized.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Various bioactive food compounds may confer health and longevity benefits, possibly through altering or preserving the epigenome. While bioactive food compounds are widely being marketed for human consumption as 'improving health and longevity' by counteracting harmful effects of poor nutrition and lifestyle, claimed effects are often not adequately documented. Using the honey bee (Apis mellifera) as a model species, we here employed a multi-step screening approach to investigate seven compounds for effects on lifespan and DNA methylation using ELISA and whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS). A positive longevity effect was detected for valproic acid, isovaleric acid, and cyanocobalamin. For curcumin, we found that lifespan shortening caused by ethanol intake, was restored when curcumin and ethanol were co-administered. Furthermore, we identified region specific DNA methylation changes as a result of ethanol intake. Ethanol specific changes in DNA methylation were fully or partially blocked in honey bees receiving ethanol and curcumin together. Ethanol-affected and curcumin-blocked differentially methylated regions covered genes involved in fertility, temperature regulation and tubulin transport. Our results demonstrate fundamental negative effects of low dose ethanol consumption on lifespan and associated DNA methylation changes and present a proof-of-principle on how longevity and DNA methylation changes can be negated by the bioactive food component curcumin. Our findings provide a fundament for further studies of curcumin in invertebrates.
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