Understanding the Effects of Three Carbohydrate Feeds on the Health of Apis mellifera by Transcriptome Analysis.

At present, there is no clear consensus on the impact of carbohydrate feeds on bee colony health, and comprehensive research and evaluation in this context is lacking. To comprehensively and objectively examine the health status of honeybees after consuming those carbohydrates from multiple perspectives, experimental techniques, including high-throughput sequencing of the transcriptome, proboscis extension reflex (PER), and measuring bee growth parameters were employed. This study showed that compared with honey, feeding high fructose syrup (HFS) resulted in a decrease in the survival rate and body weight of bees, while sucrose decreased the learning and memory ability of bees.

cDNA cloning, expression and bioinformatical analysis of Tssk genes in tree shrews.

Tree shrews are more closely related to primate animals than rodents in many aspects. In addition, they also possess several advantageous characteristics including small body size, high brain-to-body mass ratio, low cost of feeding and maintenance, short reproductive cycle and life span, which make them promising novel laboratory animals to replace more precious larger primate animals. Testis-specific serine/threonine kinase (Tssk) plays important roles in spermatogenesis and/or the regulation of sperm function.