Dietary phytochemical increase vitellogenin expression and tolerance to sublethal concentration of coumaphos in honey bees

GARRIDO P, M.; EGUARAS M, J.; MARTINEZ NOEL, G.M.; PORRINI M. P.

Guarujá

Congreso; XVIIIth Congress of International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI); 2018

During their life, honeybees can be exposed chronically to residuals of acaricides in apicultural matrices of productive hives. It has observed that the organophosphate coumaphos compromise some metabolic responses. Certain phenolic acids are found in pollen and nectar and are daily ingested by honey bees, such as p-coumaric acid. This compound is known to upregulate detoxification enzymes in adult honey bees. We test if sublethal and chronic administration of coumaphos (3900 ppb) affect temporal poliethism and if adding p-coumaric acid to the diet favor pesticide tolerance, using the protein vitellogenin (Vg) as an indicator of nurse-forager transition and heat shock protein (Hsp70) as a biomarker of toxicity. Pollen with UV treatment was employed as a protein source in all treatments. Oral administration were performed in two vehicles: sugar syrup (coumaphos treated or control) and candy (p-coumaric acid or control); none of them resulted toxic for adult bees. Nevertheless, prolonged treatment with coumaphos and p-coumaric acid together, caused the highest rate of mortality. Syrup consumption was homogeneous in honey bees. However, consumption of p-coumaric showed a decrease along time indicating a possible rejection of bees. We analyzed protein expression in 8, 12 and 15-day-old bee. Curiously, dietary p-coumaric acid increase Vg expression in the three sampling times and decrease the induction of Hsp70 in response at coumaphos treatment in 12-day old honey bees. These results suggest that p-coumaric acid is a promising candidate to be used in a preparation in order to enhance honey bee longevity and tolerance to pesticide stress. Further assays are needed to assess the effect of these treatments on age demography structure at field conditions.