Dans une étude récente parue dans la revue Journal of Experimental Biology, des scientifiques américains, finlandais, autrichiens et norvégiens ont révélé que l'homme n'a pas le monopole de la vaccination. Selon ces travaux, ces insectes ont mis au point un véritable programme d'immunisation à grande échelle contre différentes bactéries.
- Social immunity in honey bees: royal jelly as a vehicle in transferring bacterial pathogen fragments between nestmates | Journal of Experimental Biology, 31.03.2021 https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/224/7/jeb231076/238089/Social-immunity-in-honey-bees-royal-jelly-as-a
Social immunity is a suite of behavioral and physiological traits that allow colony members to protect one another from pathogens, and includes the oral transfer of immunological compounds between nestmates. In honey bees, royal jelly is a glandular secretion produced by a subset of workers that is fed to the queen and young larvae, and which contains many antimicrobial compounds. A related form of social immunity, transgenerational immune priming (TGIP), allows queens to transfer pathogen fragments into their developing eggs, where they are recognized by the embryo's immune system and induce higher pathogen resistance in the new offspring. These pathogen fragments are transported by vitellogenin (Vg), an egg-yolk precursor protein that is also used by nurses to synthesize royal jelly. Therefore, royal jelly may serve as a vehicle to transport pathogen fragments from workers to other nestmates. To investigate this, we recently showed that ingested bacteria are transported to nurses' jelly-producing glands, and here, we show that pathogen fragments are incorporated into the royal jelly. Moreover, we show that consuming pathogen cells induces higher levels of an antimicrobial peptide found in royal jelly, defensin-1.
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[Image] Vitellogenin - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Via Bernadette Cassel