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Peptide biomarkers used for the selective breeding of a complex polygenic trait in honey bees. Guarna et al 2017.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5566959/
Just came across this recent paper by a Canadian group, looks to have very interesting potential and implication for those breeding for Varroa resistant bees as it essentially cuts out a lot of colony testing. You cut right to the chase and identify your most hygienic colonies without doing liquid nitrogen killing/ pin prick/assaying degree of chewed mites etc etc.
I’ll summarize it briefly (for a pleasant change the full text is fully available). DNA markers associated with specific hygienic traits in honey bees are not good to use because of the huge amount of cross over, which means they are rapidly lost….the proteins, thought, have to be retained as they are part of the functionality of the hygienic traits.
These Canadians identified a total of 13 specific antennae proteins associated with VSH or Grooming or Hygienic behavior.
By testing bees for expression of these proteins they were able to determine which colonies had all three polygenetic traits, used these as breeding stock to produce further colonies which retained these traits (as assayed the old way!)..
Tested the damn things to destruction in some nice experiments….. They highly over infected with varroa to their protein identified colonies Vs controls of unselected stock and imported bees from New Zealand. 75% of the latter two died out, whereas only 25% of their selected stock did (it was over infection remember).
This was the clincher for me they then infected them and the same controls with AFB spores. This killed between 70-87% of the unselected controls but only 40% of the colonies that had been selected for proteins indicating hygienic traits….before anyone says “ But 40% died”…. just remember A.FB resistance was not something selected for in the protein identification assays but might be predicted to be improved because of hygienic behavior.
B+ you need to send them some bee antennae’s for analysis….save you messing around with all these pin assays’. Just breed straight from the best…..
If it does pan out then you will be able to send in bee antennae from your different colonies and get a very good idea of which ones to breed from. This approach could probably be used for other traits as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5566959/
Just came across this recent paper by a Canadian group, looks to have very interesting potential and implication for those breeding for Varroa resistant bees as it essentially cuts out a lot of colony testing. You cut right to the chase and identify your most hygienic colonies without doing liquid nitrogen killing/ pin prick/assaying degree of chewed mites etc etc.
I’ll summarize it briefly (for a pleasant change the full text is fully available). DNA markers associated with specific hygienic traits in honey bees are not good to use because of the huge amount of cross over, which means they are rapidly lost….the proteins, thought, have to be retained as they are part of the functionality of the hygienic traits.
These Canadians identified a total of 13 specific antennae proteins associated with VSH or Grooming or Hygienic behavior.
By testing bees for expression of these proteins they were able to determine which colonies had all three polygenetic traits, used these as breeding stock to produce further colonies which retained these traits (as assayed the old way!)..
Tested the damn things to destruction in some nice experiments….. They highly over infected with varroa to their protein identified colonies Vs controls of unselected stock and imported bees from New Zealand. 75% of the latter two died out, whereas only 25% of their selected stock did (it was over infection remember).
This was the clincher for me they then infected them and the same controls with AFB spores. This killed between 70-87% of the unselected controls but only 40% of the colonies that had been selected for proteins indicating hygienic traits….before anyone says “ But 40% died”…. just remember A.FB resistance was not something selected for in the protein identification assays but might be predicted to be improved because of hygienic behavior.
B+ you need to send them some bee antennae’s for analysis….save you messing around with all these pin assays’. Just breed straight from the best…..
If it does pan out then you will be able to send in bee antennae from your different colonies and get a very good idea of which ones to breed from. This approach could probably be used for other traits as well.
