Honey bee intestinal stem cells: from culture to application?

Honey bees are severely threatened by continuing health problems despite intensive research efforts to understand these problems and combat their decline. Malnutrition, stress, pesticides, and pathogens are likely to contribute to honey bee population decline, with several of these factors potentially interacting. The bee intestine is one of the main interfaces of the organism with the environment and is probably a main mediator of nutrition, immunity, and detoxification. The intestinal epithelium is reliant on continuous self-renewal by intestinal stem cells. We report here on efforts to culture these stem cells in vitro for more detailed investigation and to use their replication rate as an indicator for sublethal pesticide effects.