Researchers have learned how bees kickstart immune systems in offspring, and think it could lead to a protective drug
By andBees use an egg yolk protein to prime their offspring’s immune system against different pathogens, Finnish researchers have discovered. This deeper understanding of how honeybee immune systems function means that a bee ‘vaccine’ capable of protecting pollinators against disease is now potentially within reach.
Although honeybees are , populations are in decline and have been blamed for the current crisis. Their disappearance has become an increasingly urgent issue and several have been enacted in response. Similarly, research into the bee immune system has gathered pace. Specifically insects’ ability to prime their offspring’s immune system despite having no antibodies has long been a mystery. Now, a team from University of Helsinki seem to have the answer.
‘We were dancing in the lab,’ , main author of the paper, says of the day the results came in. ‘It was like winning the lottery!’ The team had discovered that vitellogenin, a protein also found in egg yolk, finds and binds the signature molecules of pathogens eaten by the queen bee. These signature molecules are then carried by vitellogenin into the queen’s eggs, where they work as primers for future immune responses. The breakthrough has allowed researchers to start working on bee vaccines.
‘In my opinion, the results … are of major interest in the field of trans-generational immune priming in insects,’ says of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany, who wasn’t involved with the study. ‘It’s surprising that [they] could confirm … and explain a most likely mechanism of strain-specific immune priming in invertebrates.’
Chemistry World. The article was
see also:
No comments:
Post a Comment