蜜蜂肠道微生物群落研究进展

Gut microbiota of social honey bees

摘要:

蜜蜂是重要的农业传粉昆虫，对全球农业及生态维护有着不可替代的作用。然而近年来美国、欧洲等地出现蜂群大量消失的迹象，给农业经济带来严重威胁。近年来人们逐渐发现蜂肠道微生物与维持宿主健康之间存在着联系，蜜蜂属（Apis）和熊蜂属（Bombus）个体都带有简单、特异的肠道菌群，并且蜂肠道菌群与人类等其他动物具有诸多相似之处，例如其通过社会性接触稳定传播的特性。本综述介绍了近年来通过体外培养、高通量测序等技术对蜂肠道微生物与宿主关系的研究，特别是其简化的菌群结构、宿主特异性，及其对蜜蜂食物消化、营养供给、病虫抵抗等方面的作用，并探讨了未来基于我国特有蜂种研究的方向，及蜜蜂作为优良的社会性动物模式体系对未来人类营养健康研究的可行性。

Abstract:

Bees are essential pollinators for most crops and play an invaluable role in sustaining our planet's ecosystems. In the past decades, dramatic reductions of bee colonies caused significant economic losses all through the world. Recently, it was found that social bees (genus Apis and Bombus) harbor simple and highly specific gut microbiota. Thus, there is tremendous interest in understanding the role of the gut symbionts in shaping physiology, behavior, and fitness traits of the host. Moreover, the social bee microbiota shows similarity to those of human and other animals, such as the transmission through social interactions. This review focuses on the most recent studies on the function of the bee gut microbiota in food digestion, nutrition provision, and defense against pathogens. We finally propose the opportunity of bee gut as a new model system for research on human nutrition and health.