Horizontal transmission of<i>Paenibacillus larvae</i>spores between honey bee (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) colonies through robbing

Lindström, Anders; Korpela, Seppo; Fries, Ingemar

doi:10.1051/apido:2008032

Cited by 88 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Indeed, recent studies showed that AFB is not only horizontally transmitted between colonies, e.g. through diseased, weakened colonies being robbed out by other colonies (Lindström et al, 2008b), but also vertically through swarming of strong although infected colonies . The data on differences in virulence at the colony level between different P. larvae genotypes (Rauch et al, 2009) also suggest that at least for P. larvae isolates which have a low virulence at the colony level and, hence, little negative impact on colony fitness at the beginning of the disease process (like representatives of ERIC II allowing an efficient social immune response by killing the majority of larvae before cell capping) vertical transmission at the colony level through swarming is likely to occur.…”

Section: Virulence and Transmissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

American Foulbrood in honeybees and its causative agent, Paenibacillus larvae

Genersch

2010

Journal of Invertebrate Pathology

456

466

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Section: Virulence and Transmissionmentioning

confidence: 99%

American Foulbrood in honeybees and its causative agent, Paenibacillus larvae

Genersch

2010

Journal of Invertebrate Pathology

456

466

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“…The extremely tenacious spores are the infectious form of this organism. These spores drive disease transmission within colonies (11), as well as between colonies as soon as they end up in the honey stores of an infected colony (12).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative Correlation between Individual-Insect-Level Virulence and Colony-Level Virulence of Paenibacillus larvae , the Etiological Agent of American Foulbrood of Honeybees

Rauch

Ashiralieva

Hedtke

et al. 2009

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Paenibacillus larvae is the etiological agent of American foulbrood (AFB) in honeybees. Recently, different genotypes of P. larvae (ERIC I to ERIC IV) were defined, and it was shown that these genotypes differ inter alia in their virulence on the larval level. On the colony level, bees mitigate AFB through the hygienic behavior of nurse bees. Therefore, we investigated how the hygienic behavior shapes P. larvae virulence on the colony level. Our results indicate that P. larvae virulence on the larval level and that on the colony level are negatively correlated.American foulbrood (AFB) is among the economically most important honeybee diseases. The etiological agent of AFB is the gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae (9). The extremely tenacious spores are the infectious form of this organism. These spores drive disease transmission within colonies (11), as well as between colonies as soon as they end up in the honey stores of an infected colony (12).The species P. larvae can be subdivided into four different genotypes designated ERIC I to ERIC IV based on results from repetitive-element PCR (20) using enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus (ERIC) primers (9, 10), with P. larvae ERIC I and ERIC II being the two practically most important genotypes (1, 2, 9, 10, 13, 16). The four genotypes were shown previously to differ in phenotype, including virulence on the larval level (8, 9). While larvae infected with genotypes ERIC II to ERIC IV were killed within only 6 to 7 days, it took P. larvae ERIC I around 12 to 14 days to kill all infected individuals. Therefore, genotype ERIC I was considered to be less virulent and the other three genotypes were considered to be highly virulent (7-9) on the larval level.P. larvae is an obligately killing pathogen which must kill its host to be transmitted. The virulence of such an obligate killer is thought to be determined primarily by two factors, (i) the probability of infecting a host and (ii) the time to host death (6). The problem of ensuring a high enough probability of infecting the next host is solved for P. larvae by (i) the tenacious exospores, which remain infectious for over half a century (17) and, therefore, can wait for decades for the next host to pass by, and (ii) a high pathogen reproduction rate (23) and, thus, the production of an extremely high number of spores within each infected larva.For evaluating the second factor determining P. larvae virulence, the time to host death, it is important to consider the two levels of honeybee hosts, the level of the individual larva dying from AFB and the level of the colony succumbing to AFB.The virulence of P. larvae genotypes on the larval level has been analyzed recently (8, 9). We have now determined the colony-level virulence for the two most common and practically important (10, 16) genotypes of P. larvae, ERIC I and ERIC II, significantly differing in virulence on the larval level (8). We will discuss how the time to larval death relates to the time to colony death and how the hygie...

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“…If the robbed colony is suffering from AFB, a robber bee might bring P. larvae spores back to its own nest on the surface of its body or in robbed honey stored in its honey stomach. Supporting early notions on robbing as a route of P. larvae spore transmission between colonies (Hornitzky, 1998), a recent study convincingly demonstrated that robbing is a very efficient horizontal route of actual disease transmission between colonies and that this route is the more effective the higher the local colony densities are (Lindström et al, 2008b) suggesting that bee keeping practice facilitates this route of pathogen transmission.…”

Section: Transmission Between Coloniesmentioning

confidence: 81%

Paenibacillus larvae and American Foulbrood – long since known and still surprising

Genersch

2008

J. Verbr. Lebensm.

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American foulbrood (AFB) is one of the most deleterious bacterial honey bee diseases though affecting only the larval stages of bees. The causative agent of AFB is the Grampositive bacterium Paenibacillus larvae firstly described in the beginning of the 20 th century. Since then AFB has become one of the best-studied honey bee diseases. However many aspects of AFB and the related pathogen P. larvae still remain elusive. This review will focus on three main topics by reviewing both, historical data and new results obtained with modern laboratory techniques: (i) P. larvae and the pathogenesis of AFB, (ii) transmission of P. larvae spores and AFB, and (iii) diagnosis of AFB.Zusammenfassung: Die Amerikanische Faulbrut (AFB) gehört zu den gefährlichsten bakteriellen Bruterkrankungen der Honigbienen. Der Verursacher der AFB ist das Gram-positive Bakterium Paenibacillus larvae, welches erstmals zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts beschrieben wurde. Seitdem ist die AFB eine der am besten erforschten Bienenkrankheiten. Trotzdem sind immer noch viele Aspekte der AFB und des dazugehörenden Pathogens P. larvae unerforscht. Dieser Übersichtsartikel wird sich auf drei Hauptthemen beschränken und hierzu jeweils sowohl historische Daten als auch neueste Ergebnisse vorstellen, die mit modernen Labortechniken erarbeiten wurden: (i) P. larvae und Pathogenese der AFB, (ii) Übertragung der P. larvae-Sporen und der AFB und schließlich (iii) Diagnose der AFB.

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Horizontal transmission ofPaenibacillus larvaespores between honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies through robbing

Cited by 88 publications

References 13 publications

American Foulbrood in honeybees and its causative agent, Paenibacillus larvae

American Foulbrood in honeybees and its causative agent, Paenibacillus larvae

Negative Correlation between Individual-Insect-Level Virulence and Colony-Level Virulence of Paenibacillus larvae , the Etiological Agent of American Foulbrood of Honeybees

Paenibacillus larvae and American Foulbrood – long since known and still surprising

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