title: Gamma irradiation of pollen and eradication of Israeli acute paralysis virus.
abstract: Honeybees and bumblebees are the most important pollinators of agricultural crops. For this purpose honeybees and bumblebees are reared and transported. A pathogen-free status of bees in general, is crucial. Indeed anthropogenic transports of hosts carrying parasites could alter the natural host/pathogen association, inducing an extra pathogenic stress. Therefore the creation of a pathogen-free rearing environment is needed. For bumblebees this is possible, as these species are reared in a closed environment. Although, a link remains between reared bumblebees and the outside bee community, as honeybee-collected pollen is essential food for bumblebee mass rearing. Here we evaluated if gamma irradiation can minimize the risk of this potential route of exposure and can inactivate viral particles present in honeybee-collected pollen. We show that 16.9kGy gamma irradiation induced a 100-1000 fold reduction on the ability of IAPV to cause mortality after injections. This result opens avenues toward rearing pathogen-free bumblebees and towards eliminating the risks of pathogen spillover to native wild bee species.
authors.affiliation: Department of Crop Protection, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium. Electronic address: ivan.meeus@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Meeus
authors.affiliation: Department of Crop Protection, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Hadi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mosallanejad
authors.affiliation: Department of Crop Protection, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jinzhi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Zoophysiology, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Dirk C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: de Graaf
authors.affiliation: Biobest, Ilse Velden 18, 2260 Westerlo, Belgium.
authors.forename: Felix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wäckers
authors.affiliation: Department of Crop Protection, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Coupure 653, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Smagghe
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000821:virology*; D056629:Dicistroviridae / Q000528:radiation effects*; D005514:Food Irradiation; D005720:Gamma Rays; D011058:Pollen / Q000528:radiation effects*; D013047:Specific Pathogen-Free Organisms
keywords: Bumblebee rearing; Dicistroviridae; Gamma irradiation; Israeli acute paralysis virus; Pollen; Sterilization