Identification of 121 variants of honey bee Vitellogenin protein sequences with structural differences at functional sites.

Proteins are under selection to maintain central functions and to accommodate needs that arise in ever-changing environments. The positive selection and neutral drift that preserve functions result in a diversity of protein variants. The amount of diversity differs between proteins: multifunctional or disease-related proteins tend to have fewer variants than proteins involved in some aspects of immunity.

Screening bioactive food compounds in honey bees suggests curcumin blocks alcohol-induced damage to longevity and DNA methylation.

Various bioactive food compounds may confer health and longevity benefits, possibly through altering or preserving the epigenome. While bioactive food compounds are widely being marketed for human consumption as 'improving health and longevity' by counteracting harmful effects of poor nutrition and lifestyle, claimed effects are often not adequately documented. Using the honey bee (Apis mellifera) as a model species, we here employed a multi-step screening approach to investigate seven compounds for effects on lifespan and DNA methylation using ELISA and whole genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS).

Metabolic enzymes in glial cells of the honeybee brain and their associations with aging, starvation and food response.

The honey bee has been extensively studied as a model for neuronal circuit and memory function and more recently has emerged as an unconventional model in biogerontology. Yet, the detailed knowledge of neuronal processing in the honey bee brain contrasts with the very sparse information available on glial cells. In other systems glial cells are involved in nutritional homeostasis, detoxification, and aging.

Shifts in the Midgut/Pyloric Microbiota Composition within a Honey Bee Apiary throughout a Season.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are prominent crop pollinators and are, thus, important for effective food production. The honey bee gut microbiota is mainly host specific, with only a few species being shared with other insects. It currently remains unclear how environmental/dietary conditions affect the microbiota within a honey bee population over time.

Aging- and task-related resilience decline is linked to food responsiveness in highly social honey bees.

Conventional invertebrate models of aging have provided striking examples for the influence of food- and nutrient-sensing on lifespan and stress resilience. On the other hand, studies in highly social insects, such as honey bees, have revealed how social context can shape very plastic life-history traits, for example flexible aging dynamics in the helper caste (workers). It is, however, not understood how food perception and stress resilience are connected in honey bee workers with different social task behaviors and aging dynamics.

Obtaining specimens with slowed, accelerated and reversed aging in the honey bee model.

Societies of highly social animals feature vast lifespan differences between closely related individuals. Among social insects, the honey bee is the best established model to study how plasticity in lifespan and aging is explained by social factors. The worker caste of honey bees includes nurse bees, which tend the brood, and forager bees, which collect nectar and pollen.

Aging and its modulation in a long-lived worker caste of the honey bee.

Highly social animals provide alternative aging models in which vastly different lifespan patterns are flexible, and linked to social caste. Research in these species aims to reveal how environment, including social cues, can shape the transition between short-lived and extremely long-lived phenotypes with negligible senescence. Among honey bee workers, short to intermediate lifespans are typical for summer castes, while the winter caste can live up to 10 times longer.

Flight restriction prevents associative learning deficits but not changes in brain protein-adduct formation during honeybee ageing.

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) senesce within 2 weeks after they discontinue nest tasks in favour of foraging. Foraging involves metabolically demanding flight, which in houseflies (Musca domestica) and fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) is associated with markers of ageing such as increased mortality and accumulation of oxidative damage. The role of flight in honeybee ageing is incompletely understood.

In the laboratory and during free-flight: old honey bees reveal learning and extinction deficits that mirror mammalian functional decline.

Loss of brain function is one of the most negative and feared aspects of aging. Studies of invertebrates have taught us much about the physiology of aging and how this progression may be slowed. Yet, how aging affects complex brain functions, e.