Nature’s Farmers: The Honey Bee

As some of you may know there are certain animal species that are commonly considered vital to human survival. Protecting these species is necessary to avoid food insecurity or large environmental disasters. One of the species that is often talked about is the honey bee.

Honey bee colonies not only make delicious natural honey, but they also help to pollinate crops. While honey is a great product the pollination powers of a honey bee colony help a farm be successful. In this past couple of decades, a decrease in bee populations, both feral and commercial, have been noticed. These deaths have led farms to be less productive. Under certain conditions bee colonies can collapse without the necessary workers to sustain a hive.

 Research has been done to find out what has been killing the honey bees and much of it originally focused on pesticides. Increased use of certain pesticides has been linked to decreased bee populations, however that is not the whole story. Bee colonies have also been tested and it has been found that certain viruses have become prevalent in bee colonies before they begin to die off. One such virus is the Deformed Wing Virus (DWV). This virus causes malformation and paralysis in the wings and legs of honey adult honey bees. DWV is an RNA virus that is transmitted from the Varroa mite to honey bees. It can then be passed orally by honey bee secretions or from queen and worker bee sex cells to offspring.

Until recently working with this virus was difficult but isolating the virus and synthetically replicating it has been done. The research team that did this used many processes that may sound familiar to us such as PCR, Western blotting, and immunohistochemical staining. Having the ability to replicate the virus in vitro is important to research groups trying to stop viral transmission among honey bee colonies. Finding cures and treatments to stop the spread of DWV in conjunction with safe pesticide use is vital to recovering our honey bee population.

Let me know what you think about this research in the comments below!

A research paper about the subject:
Construction and Rescue of a Molecular Clone of Deformed Wing Virus (DWV)

By: Benjamin Lamp, Angelika Url et al.

 

A news article from Science Daily:

New findings about the deformed wing virus, a major factor in honey bee colony mortality https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161111120731.htm

 

Sneaky Snakes!

The article listed below details some of the research being on the Venezuelan mapanare, or Bothrops columbiensis. Specifically, this research group was running experiments to identify the different compounds in snake venom. The Venezuelan mapanare is a common snake that is responsible for 70% of snake bites in Venezuela. The proteome of the venom has been identified in other research, but due to the high density of proteins in venom glands it is hard to identify and research each protein using standard methods. In particular, the group pointed out that proteome research may miss proteins that are expressed in extremely low quantities. During this research the venom glands of the snake were used to make a transcriptome, or list of all the DNA that is currently being transcribed into RNA in a cell group. The cells making up the venom gland should have mRNA for each protein in the venom, allowing researchers to identify proteins differently than the methods used to make a proteome.

When constructing the transcriptome, the research group identified expressed sequence tags (ESTs). These are the mRNA products from the cDNA being translated into mRNA. The transcriptome identified 729 unique sequences. Of these 47.2% matched known snake toxins, 22% were regular products found in most cells, 11.9% were identified as proteins with unknown functions, 18.9% did not match anything in GenBank.  These sequences will likely be the subject of further research.

The results from this analysis can be used for a variety of things. The mapanare venom can be better compared to other snakes, and the evolutionary history of different snakes can be elucidated with the information. Better antibodies can be made since the venom is more fully understood. There is also some research being done to isolate specific proteins that can be used in medicine for a variety of things. Different proteins can coagulate or thin blood. Some proteins can cause specific inflammatory responses that may also have some use in trauma medicine.

What do you think about this research? Let me know below.


http://bmcmolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12867-016-0059-7
Gene expression profiling of the venom gland from the Venezuelan mapanare (Bothrops colombiensis) using expressed sequence tags (ESTs)
By: Montamas Suntravat, Néstor L. Uzcategui, Chairat Atphaisit, Thomas J. Helmke, Sara E. Lucena, Elda E. Sánchez1 and Alexis Rodríguez Acosta

Microbial Fuel Cells

Currently most energy production is fueled by a variety of fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal, and oil. There are some obvious problems with burning fossil fuels to create energy. The pollutants produced during energy production cannot be properly stored forever and the CO₂ levels have a variety of effects on the environment, including ocean acidification. With the obvious drawbacks of fossil fuels research is being done in a variety replacement energy sources. These sources include gasoline producing bacteria, nuclear power, solar energy, wind energy, hydroelectric power production, and geothermal energy. While some of these solutions are more environmentally friendly than others, they all have their drawbacks. Most of them need large boosts in efficiently to make them viable replacements to fossil fuels in the market place. A combination of multiple sources will be needed to sustain the amount of energy we will need to meet the power requirements of future populations.

One source of energy production that I stumbled across while looking for interesting articles to write about is the use of microbial fuel cells to produce electricity. In microbial fuel cells bacteria are used to perform reactions that generate electricity. In one case researchers developed a fuel cell to take the wastewater from a brewery and convert it into power and clean water for future brewing. A link to that is down below. The article I chose to focus on is a group of researchers using simple E. coli to make power. Originally they researched the mechanisms behind the production of energy using E. Coli. They found that while energy production of the bacteria when biomass was added was measurable there were ways to improve on the process. The bacteria were not conductive and it was expensive to harvest the energy. The bacteria secreted Indole, a benzene ring fused to a five membered ring with a nitrogen on it. Indole can be oxidized by oxygenases from other bacteria, one of which was subsequently transplanted via plasmid into the bacteria. The indole and modified E. Coli made nine times more power than the control microbial fuel cells. This was an interesting result and shows that bacteria can be designed to perform specific reactions and produce significantly different amounts of electricity. While the MFCs are not at all efficient, in the brewery case it led to major savings on wastewater treatment. This means they can also be designed to purify water after certain industrial uses. This make them cost efficient for water purification while also being able to produce power as an added benefit.

Being able to purify waste products and produce power seems like something the future needs. Let me know what you thing in the comments below.

For more reading:                

Basics on a microbial fuel cell:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_fuel_cell

Energy from beer article:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/mag/1394/fosters-australian-for-electricity/

A scholarly article on optimizing fuel cells:

Indole oxidation enhances electricity production in an E-coli-catalyzed microbial fuel cell.

By: Han, TH; Cho, MH; Lee, J.