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Dicer regulates Nosema ceranae proliferation in honeybees.
Journal article

Dicer regulates Nosema ceranae proliferation in honeybees.

  • Huang Q Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Liebefeld, Switzerland.
  • Li W USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, BARC-East, Building 306, Beltsville, Maryland, USA.
  • Chen Y USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, BARC-East, Building 306, Beltsville, Maryland, USA.
  • Retschnig-Tanner G Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Liebefeld, Switzerland.
  • Yanez O Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Liebefeld, Switzerland.
  • Neumann P Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Liebefeld, Switzerland.
  • Evans JD USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, BARC-East, Building 306, Beltsville, Maryland, USA.
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  • 2018-09-02
Published in:
  • Insect molecular biology. - 2019
Nosema ceranae
Dicer
honeybee
siRNA
transcriptome
Animals
Bees
Gene Expression Profiling
Host-Parasite Interactions
Nosema
Ribonuclease III
Spores, Fungal
Transcriptome
English Nosema ceranae is a microsporidian parasite that infects the honeybee midgut epithelium. The protein-coding gene Dicer is lost in most microsporidian genomes but is present in N. ceranae. By feeding infected honeybees with small interfering RNA targeting the N. ceranae gene coding Dicer (siRNA-Dicer), we found that N. ceranae spore loads were significantly reduced. In addition, over 10% of total parasite protein-coding genes showed significantly divergent expression profiles after siRNA-Dicer treatment. Parasite genes for cell proliferation, ABC transporters and hexokinase were downregulated at 3 days postinfection, a key point in the middle of parasite replication cycles. In addition, genes involved in metabolic pathways of honeybees and N. ceranae showed significant co-expression. Furthermore, the siRNA-Dicer treatment partly reversed the expression patterns of honeybee genes. The honeybee gene mucin-2-like showed significantly upregulation in the siRNA-Dicer group compared with the infection group continually at 4, 5 and 6 days postinfection, suggesting that the siRNA-Dicer feeding promoted the strength of the mucus barrier resulted from interrupted parasite proliferation. As the gene Dicer broadly regulates N. ceranae proliferation and honeybee metabolism, our data suggest the RNA interference pathway is an important infection strategy for N. ceranae.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/263649
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