Effect of the glyphosate herbicide on the expression of antioxidant system genes in africanized bees Apis mellifera

• Grant number: 21/13612-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2022
• End date: January 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Production
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo de Oliveira Orsi
• Grantee: Glória Maria da Silva Alvarez Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia (FMVZ). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The present research aims to evaluate the effect of the herbicide glyphosate on the expression of genes of the antioxidant system of Africanized A. mellifera bees in the forager phase, by ingestion test with a lethal dose (LD50 273.93 µg / bee). For this, the newly emerged bees from ten different colonies will be marked in the pronotum region and returned as their colonies; after 21 days, 10 of the previously marked forager bees will be captured from each colony. For the ingestion tests, these bees will be fasted for a period of 1 hour, to empty the contents of their nectariferous vesicle; then 1 ml of honey syrup will be available, containing or not a lethal dose of glyphosate. The bees will be placed in perforated Petri dishes and kept in an oven (33 ± 1.0ºC and 75% RH), totaling five repetitions. After 4 hours of exposure, 20 bees will be randomly collected for transcriptome analyses. The total RNA of five bees from each treatment will be extracted by the triol method. Calculation of gene expression measurements from mRNA sequences and generation of gene expression profiles will be performed on the CLC Genomics Workbench 7.01 platform (CLC Bio, Denmark). This research wait to obtain important information on how the exposure of A. mellifera bees to the studied herbicide can change the gene expression profile of the bees' antioxidant system. (AU)