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A blood test to monitor bee health across a European network of agricultural sites of different land-use by MALDI BeeTyping mass spectrometry

Askri, Dalel ; Pottier, Mathilde ; Arafah, Karim ; Voisin, Sébastien N. ; Hodge, Simon ; Stout, Jane C. ; Dominik, Christophe ; Schweiger, Oliver ; Tamburini, Giovanni and Pereira-Peixoto, Maria Helena , et al. (2024) In Science of the Total Environment 929.
Abstract

There are substantial concerns about impaired honey bee health and colony losses due to several poorly understood factors. We used MALDI profiling (MALDI BeeTyping®) analysis to investigate how some environmental and management factors under field conditions across Europe affected the honey bee haemolymph peptidome (all peptides in the circulatory fluid), as a profile of molecular markers representing the immune status of Apis mellifera. Honey bees were exposed to a range of environmental stressors in 128 agricultural sites across eight European countries in four biogeographic zones, with each country contributing eight sites each for two different cropping systems: oilseed rape (OSR) and apple (APP). The full haemolymph peptide... (More)

There are substantial concerns about impaired honey bee health and colony losses due to several poorly understood factors. We used MALDI profiling (MALDI BeeTyping®) analysis to investigate how some environmental and management factors under field conditions across Europe affected the honey bee haemolymph peptidome (all peptides in the circulatory fluid), as a profile of molecular markers representing the immune status of Apis mellifera. Honey bees were exposed to a range of environmental stressors in 128 agricultural sites across eight European countries in four biogeographic zones, with each country contributing eight sites each for two different cropping systems: oilseed rape (OSR) and apple (APP). The full haemolymph peptide profiles, including the presence and levels of three key immunity markers, namely the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) Apidaecin, Abaecin and Defensin-1, allowed the honey bee responses to environmental variables to be discriminated by country, crop type and site. When considering just the AMPs, it was not possible to distinguish between countries by the prevalence of each AMP in the samples. However, it was possible to discriminate between countries on the amounts of the AMPs, with the Swedish samples in particular expressing high amounts of all AMPs. A machine learning model was developed to discriminate the haemolymphs of bees from APP and OSR sites. The model was 90.6 % accurate in identifying the crop type from the samples used to build the model. Overall, MALDI BeeTyping® of bee haemolymph represents a promising and cost-effective “blood test” for simultaneously monitoring dozens of peptide markers affected by environmental stressors at the landscape scale, thus providing policymakers with new diagnostic and regulatory tools for monitoring bee health.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Apis mellifera, Environment, Field study, Immunity, MALDI profiling
in
Science of the Total Environment
volume
929
article number
172239
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • pmid:38583620
  • scopus:85191297538
ISSN
0048-9697
DOI
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172239
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
5b89c1dc-3c44-4ab8-b96f-bcc250cef3bb
date added to LUP
2024-05-07 16:44:04
date last changed
2024-05-13 15:06:14
@article{5b89c1dc-3c44-4ab8-b96f-bcc250cef3bb,
  abstract     = {{<p>There are substantial concerns about impaired honey bee health and colony losses due to several poorly understood factors. We used MALDI profiling (MALDI BeeTyping®) analysis to investigate how some environmental and management factors under field conditions across Europe affected the honey bee haemolymph peptidome (all peptides in the circulatory fluid), as a profile of molecular markers representing the immune status of Apis mellifera. Honey bees were exposed to a range of environmental stressors in 128 agricultural sites across eight European countries in four biogeographic zones, with each country contributing eight sites each for two different cropping systems: oilseed rape (OSR) and apple (APP). The full haemolymph peptide profiles, including the presence and levels of three key immunity markers, namely the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) Apidaecin, Abaecin and Defensin-1, allowed the honey bee responses to environmental variables to be discriminated by country, crop type and site. When considering just the AMPs, it was not possible to distinguish between countries by the prevalence of each AMP in the samples. However, it was possible to discriminate between countries on the amounts of the AMPs, with the Swedish samples in particular expressing high amounts of all AMPs. A machine learning model was developed to discriminate the haemolymphs of bees from APP and OSR sites. The model was 90.6 % accurate in identifying the crop type from the samples used to build the model. Overall, MALDI BeeTyping® of bee haemolymph represents a promising and cost-effective “blood test” for simultaneously monitoring dozens of peptide markers affected by environmental stressors at the landscape scale, thus providing policymakers with new diagnostic and regulatory tools for monitoring bee health.</p>}},
  author       = {{Askri, Dalel and Pottier, Mathilde and Arafah, Karim and Voisin, Sébastien N. and Hodge, Simon and Stout, Jane C. and Dominik, Christophe and Schweiger, Oliver and Tamburini, Giovanni and Pereira-Peixoto, Maria Helena and Klein, Alexandra Maria and López, Vicente Martínez and De la Rúa, Pilar and Cini, Elena and Potts, Simon G. and Schwarz, Janine M. and Knauer, Anina C. and Albrecht, Matthias and Raimets, Risto and Karise, Reet and di Prisco, Gennaro and Ivarsson, Kjell and Svensson, Glenn P. and Ronsevych, Oleksandr and Knapp, Jessica L. and Rundlöf, Maj and Onorati, Piero and de Miranda, Joachim R. and Bocquet, Michel and Bulet, Philippe}},
  issn         = {{0048-9697}},
  keywords     = {{Apis mellifera; Environment; Field study; Immunity; MALDI profiling}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Science of the Total Environment}},
  title        = {{A blood test to monitor bee health across a European network of agricultural sites of different land-use by MALDI BeeTyping mass spectrometry}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172239}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172239}},
  volume       = {{929}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}