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Project

Bacteriophages in the honey bee gut and their effects on health and development

Despite the recent advances in the knowledge of the honey bee gut metagenome, very little data are available on the prokaryotic viral part (bacteriophages) of the microbiome in honey bees. Bacteriophages are considered the most prevalent biological units globally, execute essential roles within their respective ecosystems and have a strong influence on their hosts and ecosystem equilibria. The multitude of functions prokaryotic viruses can exert within their biosphere, combined with the fact that the honey bee bacteriota plays a crucial role in bee health, implies that the viral microbiota could play an important role here as well. The main objective of this project is to provide an in depth in silico and in vivo characterization of the bacteriophage population infecting the most important members of the honeybee gut microbiota, as well as studying their role in honey bee health and development. For this we have access to samples collected during the European B-GOOD project. Both the bacteriome (16S) and the virome (shotgun) inhabiting the digestive tract of honey bees will be characterized. Bacteria will be isolated and characterized from the midgut, ileum and rectum of the collected animals. These bacterial isolates will be used to isolate bacteriophages followed by their genome sequencing and functional gene annotation. Finally, microbiota-free worker bees will be inoculated with different combinations of bacteria and their bacteriophages in in vivo cage experiments to investigate their effects on honey bee health, behaviour and development.

Date:2 Apr 2021 →  Today
Keywords:Metagenomics, Viral metagenomics, Bacteriophages, Phages, Honey bee, Apis mellifera, Virology, Bioinformatics, Sequencing
Disciplines:Metagenomics
Project type:PhD project