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Browsing by Author "Simko, Elemir"

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    Are honey bees a suitable model for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders?
    (2022) Bevelander, Breanne; Simko, Elena; Polizel Camilli, Marcelo; Thebeau, Jenna; da Silva, Marina; Markova, Sofiia; Lester, Tessa; Obshta, Oleksii; Biganski, Sarah; Brown, Vanessa; Kozii, Ivanna; Masood, Fatima; Jose, Midhun; Moshynskyy, Igor; Raza, Fahim; Roulin, Melanie; Simko, Elemir; Wood, Sarah
    Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) are a continuum of disorders caused by prenatal exposure to ethanol. They affect an estimated 4% of Canadians. FASDs are associated with a host of complications including, but not limited to, cognitive difficulties, developmental delay, increased mortality, smaller birth weight, smaller brain size, as well as gross and fine motor issues. It has been previously established that fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are a suitable invertebrate model for FASDs. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) share many similarities to Drosophila as a research model, but with the distinct advantage of highly social behaviour, similar to that of humans. In this project we exposed honey bees to incremental, sublethal concentrations of ethanol during larval development and monitored their survival, developmental rate, and weight at adult emergence. We found that larval honey bees exposed to ≥6% ethanol experienced significantly higher mortality, developmental delay, and lower body weight at emergence. Accordingly, these results, in combination with ongoing neurobehavioural analyses of adult bees exposed to ethanol as larvae, suggest that honey bees may be an ideal model for human FASDs.
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    Does hive strength predispose honey bees to European foulbrood disease?
    (2022) Brown, Vanessa; Thebeau, Jenna; Masood, Fatima; Jose, Midhun; Obshta, Oleksii; da Silva, Marina; Markova, Sofiia; Bevelander, Breanne; Simko, Olena; Lester, Tessa; Biganski, Sarah; Raza, Fahim; Polizel Camilli, Marcelo; Moshynskyy, Igor; Guarna, Maria Marta; Gerbrandt, Eric; Wood, Sarah; Kozii, Ivanna
    European Foulbrood (EFB) is a bacterial disease of young honey bee larvae, caused by Melissococcus plutonius infection of the larval midgut. It occurs in times of nutritional stress when insufficient food is supplied to the larvae by the nursing bee population. EFB increases larval mortality, thereby limiting the colony’s growth, which can have consequences on the hive’s pollination services, honey production, and ability to reproduce. Recently, increased incidence of EFB has been observed across North America; however, the underlaying factors predisposing colonies to EFB remain largely unknown.
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    Sensitivity Assessment for Paenibacillus larvae detection: a Comparison of Yard and Barrel Sampling Methods
    (The 2025 Life & Health Sciences Research Expo, University of Saskatchewan, 2025-05-01) Enadeghe, Rosephine; Lopez-Neto, Belarmino; Obshta, Oleksii; de Silva, Marina Bezerra; Camilli, Marcelo Polizel; Raza, Fahim; de Silva, Marina Bezerra; Jose, Midhun Sebastian; Edirithilake, Thanuri; Tregobov, J.; la Mora, Alvaro De; Janser, M.; Moshynskyy, Igor; Wood, Sarah; Simko, Elemir
    BACKGROUND: American Foulbrood (AFB), caused by the spore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae, continues to pose a significant threat to honeybee populations. Traditional detection methods for AFB rely heavily on observation of clinical signs and evaluation of adult bees, honey samples and hive debris collected from individual hives for risk assessment. Accordingly this may not be feasible for large commercial operations which consequently rely on indiscriminate antibiotic metaphylaxis to control AFB thus a need for herd medicine. Our Objective was to assess P. larvae spore concentrations in honey samples from yard-level honey extraction and 5th barrel sampling (300 kg of honey) extraction processes and compared spore concentrations/sensitivity. We hypothesize that honey samples collected from every 5th barrel during honey barreling process are more representative samples for determination of AFB spore concentrations at an operation level. METHODS: A total of 212 honey samples collected from Yard (n=125) and 5th barrel (n=87) extraction were analyzed using microscopy-based and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) techniques. RESULTS: Data from this study demonstrates that sampling every 5th Barrel of honey seem to be more representative and sensitive for P. larvae detection while Samples from yard extraction reveal low concentration of P. larvae spores <100 spores/g. CONCLUSION: Bulk sampling from 5th barrel holding tanks collection may offer a more integrative and convenient approach for commercial beekeepers and large scale AFB surveillance, however linking samples to a specific yard may be a challenge