Michael Smith Laboratories and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Biodiversity Research Centre, Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Insect Mol Biol. 2019 Aug;28(4):455-472. doi: 10.1111/imb.12567. Epub 2019 Feb 14.
Gut microbiota research is an emerging field that improves our understanding of the ecological and functional dynamics of gut environments. The honey bee gut microbiota is a highly rewarding community to study, as honey bees are critical pollinators of many crops for human consumption and produce valuable commodities such as honey and wax. Most significantly, unique characteristics of the Apis mellifera gut habitat make it a valuable model system. This review discusses methods and pipelines used in the study of the gut microbiota of Ap. mellifera and closely related species for four main purposes: identifying microbiota taxonomy, characterizing microbiota genomes (microbiome), characterizing microbiota-microbiota interactions and identifying functions of the microbial community in the gut. The purpose of this contribution is to increase understanding of honey bee gut microbiota, to facilitate bee microbiota and microbiome research in general and to aid design of future experiments in this growing field.
肠道微生物组研究是一个新兴领域，它增进了我们对肠道环境生态和功能动态的理解。蜜蜂肠道微生物组是一个非常值得研究的群落，因为蜜蜂是许多人类食用作物的重要传粉媒介，并且生产有价值的商品，如蜂蜜和蜂蜡。最重要的是，蜜蜂肠道栖息地的独特特征使其成为一个有价值的模型系统。本综述讨论了用于研究 Apis mellifera 及其近缘种肠道微生物组的方法和流程，主要有四个目的：鉴定微生物组分类群、描述微生物组基因组（微生物组）、描述微生物组-微生物组相互作用以及鉴定肠道微生物群落的功能。本研究旨在增进对蜜蜂肠道微生物组的理解，促进蜜蜂微生物组和微生物组研究，为这个不断发展的领域的未来实验设计提供帮助。
