Laboratório de Sanidade Apícola (LASA), Pólo Regional do Vale do Paraíba, Agência Paulista de Tecnologia dos Agronegócios (APTA), Secretaria de Agricultura e Abastecimento do Estado de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 07, CEP 12.400-970 Pindamonhangaba, SP, Brazil.
J Invertebr Pathol. 2013 Nov;114(3):250-4. doi: 10.1016/j.jip.2013.09.002. Epub 2013 Sep 8.
Until the mid-1990s, the only microsporidium known to infect bees of the genus Apis was Nosema apis. A second species, Nosema ceranae, was first identified in 1996 from Asian honey bees; it is postulated that this parasite was transmitted from the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, to the European honey bee, Apis mellifera. Currently, N. ceranae is found on all continents and has often been associated with honey bee colony collapse and other reports of high bee losses. Samples of Africanized drones collected in 1979, preserved in alcohol, were analyzed by light microscopy to count spores and were subjected to DNA extraction, after which duplex PCR was conducted. All molecular analyses (triplicate) indicated that the drones were infected with both N. ceranae and N. apis. PCR products were sequenced and matched to sequences reported in the GenBank (Acc. Nos. JQ639316.1 and JQ639301.1). The venation pattern of the wings of these males was compared to those of the current population living in the same area and with the pattern of drones collected in 1968 from Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil, from a location close to where African swarms first escaped in 1956. The morphometric results indicated that the population collected in 1979 was significantly different from the current living population, confirming its antiquity. Considering that the use of molecular tools for identifying Nosema species is relatively recent, it is possible that previous reports of infections (which used only light microscopy, without ultrastructural analysis) wrongly identified N. ceranae as N. apis. Although we can conclude that N. ceranae has been affecting Africanized honeybees in Brazil for at least 34 years, the impact of this pathogen remains unclear.
直到 20 世纪 90 年代中期，已知感染蜜蜂属 Apis 的唯一微孢子虫是蜜蜂微孢子虫（Nosema apis）。1996 年，首次从亚洲蜜蜂中鉴定出第二种物种——蜜蜂微孢子虫（Nosema ceranae）；据推测，这种寄生虫是从亚洲蜜蜂（Apis cerana）传播到欧洲蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）的。目前，蜜蜂微孢子虫已在各大洲发现，并经常与蜜蜂种群崩溃和其他蜜蜂大量死亡的报告有关。1979 年采集的非洲化雄蜂样本用酒精保存，通过光学显微镜分析以计算孢子数量，并进行 DNA 提取，之后进行双重 PCR。所有分子分析（重复 3 次）表明，雄蜂感染了蜜蜂微孢子虫和蜜蜂微孢子虫。PCR 产物测序并与 GenBank 中报告的序列匹配（Acc. Nos. JQ639316.1 和 JQ639301.1）。这些雄性的翅膀脉序模式与同一地区目前的种群以及 1968 年从巴西里贝朗普雷图（Ribeirão Preto）采集的、来自 1956 年非洲蜂首次逃逸地点附近的雄蜂的模式进行了比较。形态计量学结果表明，1979 年采集的种群与目前的种群有显著差异，证实其年代久远。考虑到用于鉴定蜜蜂微孢子虫种的分子工具相对较新，以前仅使用光学显微镜、没有进行超微结构分析的感染报告可能错误地将蜜蜂微孢子虫鉴定为蜜蜂微孢子虫。尽管我们可以得出结论，蜜蜂微孢子虫已经在巴西影响非洲化蜜蜂至少 34 年了，但这种病原体的影响仍不清楚。
