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Defining the Biologically Plausible Taxonomic Domain of Applicability Can Enhance the Utility of an Adverse Outcome Pathway for Understanding Apis and Non-Apis Bee Health
Citation:
Jensen, M., D. Blatz, AND C. LaLone. Defining the Biologically Plausible Taxonomic Domain of Applicability Can Enhance the Utility of an Adverse Outcome Pathway for Understanding Apis and Non-Apis Bee Health. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, November 13 - 17, 2022. https://doi.org/10.23645/epacomptox.21411600
Impact/Purpose:
Poster presented to the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) North America annual meeting November 2022. Public concerns regarding the impact of chemical stressors on honey bee populations have been recognized. Recently, biological pathway knowledge was gathered to understand how chemical stressors can lead to honey bee colony death/failure. Such knowledge can be used to inform research efforts by filling knowledge gaps and can provide possible mitigation strategies to reduce the likelihood of a chemical stressor causing harm to bee colonies. In addition to honey bees, there is also growing concern for other bee species, such as bumble bees. Efforts are underway to understand chemical impacts to these non-Apis species. To begin to evaluate similarities and differences in the biological pathways across bee species, the Sequence Alignment to Predict Across Species Susceptibility (SeqAPASS) tool was used. This web-based, publicly available tool can explore conservation of the pathway at the molecular level considering all pollinator species. Output from the SeqAPASS can be used to understand which chemical stressors are likely to impact many bee species, including non-Apis bees. The information from SeqAPASS can also be useful to develop approaches to lessen the chemical stressor impact on bees.
Description:
Apis bee health has gained significant attention due to the increases in colony death and failure. Chemical stressors, such as neonicotinoid insecticides, along with non-chemical stressors contribute to impact on colonies. In addition to the concern surrounding Apis bee populations, there are concerns regarding non-Apis bee populations, such as bumble bees and solitary bees. To begin to better understand the possible linkages between stressors and declines in Apis mellifera bee health, an adverse outcome pathway (AOP) network was previously published describing the weight of evidence connecting activation of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor to an adverse outcome of colony death/failure. Because this network was developed focusing only on Apis mellifera, there are uncertainties regarding extrapolation to other bee species. Defining the taxonomic domain of applicability (tDOA) of an AOP is important for regulatory decision-making, especially when considering the protection of untested bee species. Because protein structural and/or functional conservation are two components that can be considered when defining tDOA, bioinformatics tools such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Sequence Alignment to Predict Across Species Susceptibility (SeqAPASS) can provide lines of evidence of structural conservation across species and therefore help inform biologically plausible tDOA descriptions. Results show evidence of structural conservation across many Apis and non-Apis bees in early key events, however, downstream apical key events are expected to differ across bee species, depending on characteristics like colony structure. Even though early key events may be linked to different outcomes for some species, understanding how broadly the early key event biology can be extrapolated is useful for mitigation strategies, especially for bee species that are normally untested. A decision tree can also be applied to understand whether it is plausible that other bee species could be included in the tDOA. Expanding tDOA descriptions for key events and key event relationships in this AOP can increase its utility in decision-making and highlights knowledge gaps to guide further research. The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the US EPA.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Defining the Biologically Plausible Taxonomic Domain of Applicability Can Enhance the Utility of an Adverse Outcome Pathway for Understanding Apis and Non-Apis Bee Health
JENSEN SETAC POSTER 2022_FINAL_SIZE ADJ.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 784.148 KB, about PDF)