Surviving high temperatures: The crucial role of vesicular inhibitory amino acid transporter in Asian honeybee, Apis cerana.

Asian honeybees (Apis cerana) play a crucial role as pollinators to service for the ecological stability. However, their proliferation and growth are significantly impacted by environmental temperature stress. This study delves into the function of the Apis cerana vesicular inhibitory amino acid transporter gene (AcVIAAT) in safeguarding Asian honeybees against high-temperature stress. The AcVIAAT gene exhibits positive responsiveness in honeybees subjected to varying thermal conditions by triggering the genes associated with oxidative stress. Molecular docking, co-immunoprecipitation, and ELISA verify the capacity of the AcVIAAT protein to interact with γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a key inhibitory neurotransmitter. Administering GABA to honeybees significantly improves their survival rate under high-temperature stress and also simultaneously upregulating oxidative stress-related genes. Therefore, these findings reveal that the AcVIAAT gene enhances the thermoregulatory capacity of honeybees by modulating oxidative stress-related genes through facilitating GABA transport. The characterization of six non-synonymous SNPs in the AcVIAAT gene among A.cerana populations distributed across both the northern and southern regions indicates a potential association between gene variation and environmental adaptation. Our results contribute to elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying high-temperature tolerance in Asian honeybees and provide a promising genetic marker for enhancing heat tolerance through genetic improvement.

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Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Jinshan Xu reports financial support was provided by China Agriculture Research System. Jinshan Xu reports financial support was provided by Creation & research team in College and Universities of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission. Jinshan Xu reports financial support was provided by Chongqing Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.