How Diet and Pesticides Change Bees Gene Expression

Feeding a bee an artificial pollen diet is not beneficial. A bee that has a natural diet of pollen is more resistant to pesticides than a bee with an artificial diet. Pesticides also cause a change in expression of genes in bees that deal with detoxification, immunity, and nutrition.

Help me I'm a poor little cute bee.

The first part of the study, done by Christina Grozinger at Penn State, showed that even when bees are exposed to nonlethal doses of pesticides, larges changes in gene expression are made. There is a link between nutrition, diet, and pesticide exposure when dealing with the health of a bee. The diet impacts how long bees live after given lethal doses of pesticides. Danial Schmehl at the University of Florida states that a bee's natural diet makes them "significantly more resistant to lethal doses of a pesticide than feeding them a more simple, artificial diet."
The impact of pesticide exposure on gene expression was done by feeding bees pesticides that have been detected in hives for a period of seven days. On the last day the RNA of the bees was extracted, attached to a fluorescent marker, and then the differences in gene expression patters were examined. The patterns of fluorescence between the treated bees and controlled bees showed the changes. Over 1100 pieces of RNA showed change in genes involved in detoxification, nutrition, and immunity. The researches then did the tests giving bees a natural and artificial diet, and the natural diet showed less changes.
This study is very useful because it could help the future of honey bees. Many honey bees have been dying off due to pesticides and it is negatively impacting the environment since honey bees are a major contributor to spreading pollen. This study could help scientists make sure bees are getting a proper diet that can help them survive harmful pesticides. The amount of pesticides used needs to be greatly reduced first, but this study could also help honey bees survive. This study also shows how gene expression could be affected and this may be helpful for humans and what could affect their gene expression diet, nutrition, and detoxification wise.

Article: http://news.psu.edu/story/332959/2014/11/03/research/diet-affects-pesticide-resistance-honey-bees