>Currently, there is no antibiotic treatment for this parasite, however, that will change this fall when fumagillin will once again be available in the US. This genetic approach, however, is a much better >approach.

From Jay Evans, research leader of the ARS Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland 

>  “Dicer is a critical part of Nosema ceranae’s machinery for defeating honey bees’ immune responses to infestation by these parasites. It also encodes an essential protein in N. ceranae’s reproduction. So, it could be a double-barreled, practical route for attacking N. ceranae. Even better, RNAi against Dicer is specific to the parasite and will not interfere with the health of the honey bees,” 



Abstract:

>"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 3days 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 6days 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"

>Dicer regulates Nosema ceranae proliferation in honeybees
Q. Huang, W. Li, Y. Chen, G. Retschnig-Tanner, O. Yanez, P. Neumann, and J. D. Evans

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/imb.12534


Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT

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