Biotech Updates

Influence of Bt Maize Pollen on Midgut Bacterial Community of Worker Bees

October 24, 2012

Li-li Geng from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and colleagues conducted a study to investigate the effects of Bt-cry1Ah maize pollen and high-dose foreign DNA on the midgut bacterial community of larvae and worker bees (Apis melifera liguistica), economically important pollinators, under both laboratory and field conditions.

They fed the newly emerged bees with transgenic cry1Ah maize pollen, normal maize pollen, and linear cry1Ah gene DNA, supercoiled plasmid DNA, and sugar syrup under laboratory conditions. Results showed that there were no significant differences in the midgut bacterial community composition of the bees under the five treatments. No remarkable effects were also found in the midgut communities between larvae and adult honeybees exposed to transgenic cry1Ah-maize pollen and non-GM maize pollen in field conditions.

Read the research article at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13592-012-0171-8?LI=true.