The unequivocal effectiveness of vaccinations has seen many of the world’s worst and most debilitating diseases relegated to the history books. Gone are the days when millions of people were afflicted with diseases that could leave them permanently disabled, enabling many more to live long and healthy lives. Before their invention however developing an immunity to a disease often meant enduring it, something ranged from a mild inconvenience to a life threatening prospect. Our biology takes care of part of that, with some immunity passing down from mother to child, however we’d never witnessed that outside our branch on the biology tree of life. New research shows though that bees in fact have their own form of natural immunity that queens pass onto their workers.
The research, conducted by scientists at Stanford University and published in PLOS Pathogens a couple days ago, shows that queen bees immunize their worker bees against certain types of pathogens that would otherwise devastate the colony. The mechanism by which this works is actually very similar to the way many vaccines work today. Essentially the queen bee, who rarely leaves the hive, is fed on a combination of pollen and nectar called royal jelly. This food actually contains a variety of pathogens which typically would be deadly to the bees.
However the queen bee has what’s called a fat body, an organ which functions similarly to our liver. Once the pathogen has been broken down in the queen bee’s gut it’s then transferred to the fat body where parts of the pathogen are wrapped up in a protein called vitellogenin. This is then passed onto her offspring who, when they hatch, now have immunity to pathogens that would otherwise kill them. What’s interesting about this process is that it has the potential for aiding current bee populations which have been collapsing around the world over the past decade.
Whilst the root cause of the widespread colony collapse is still under intense debate there are several potential causes which could be mitigated by using this mechanism. Essentially we could devise vaccines for some of the potential problems that bee colonies face and introduce them via spraying flowers with them. Then, when the pollen is brought back to the queen, all the subsequent bees would get the immunity, protecting them from the disease. This could also aid in making the end product better for humans, potentially eradicating problems like botulism toxin which sometimes makes its way into honey.
It’s always interesting to see common attributes like this pop up across species as it gives us an idea of how much of our evolutionary lineage is shared. Whilst we don’t share a lot in common with bees there are a lot of similar mechanisms at play, suggesting our evolutionary paths deviated at a common ancestor a long time ago. Something like this, whilst not exactly a revolution, does have the potential to benefit both us and our buzzing companions. Hopefully this leads to positive progress in combating colony collapse which is beneficial for far more than just lovers of honey.
