Zhenguo Liu

Shandong Agricultural University · College of Animal Science and Technology

BACKGROUND Phototactic behavior and oviposition site selection in phytoseiid predators are crucial for understanding their ecological interactions and optimizing their use in agricultural pest management. This study investigated the phototactic responses and oviposition preferences of seven phytoseiid species of proven or potential importance in bi...

Negative relationships between the parental age and offspring life history traits have been widely observed across diverse animal taxa. However, there is a lack of studies examining the influence of parental age on offspring performance using mites, particularly phytoseiid predators as subjects. This study explored the influence of maternal age on...

The honey bee Apis cerana cerana (A. c. cerana), a subspecies of Apis cerana, is endemic in China and possesses a valuable ecological niche. Understanding the ways to protect this honey bee’s populations is crucial, but this topic has been understudied. For the efficient utilization of beekeeping and pollination, there is a need to explore its biol...

In this study we delved into the effects of royal jelly supplementation on the life history traits of Amblyseius herbicolus, a thelytokous predatory mite with potential in biological pest control. Royal jelly, a nutrient-rich substance from honeybees, is known for its diverse biological activities in various species. Our experiments showed the conc...

Varroa destructor infestation is a major factor leading to the global decline of honeybee populations. Monitoring the level of Varroa mite infestation in order to take timely control measures is crucial for the protection of bee colonies. Machine vision systems can achieve non-invasive Varroa mite detection on bee colonies, but it is challenged by...

20-Hydroxyecdysone (20E) plays an essential role in coordinating developmental transitions in insects through responsive protein-coding genes and microRNAs (miRNAs). However, the interplay between 20E and miRNAs during insect metamorphosis is unknown. In this study, using small RNA sequencing, a comparative miRNA transcriptomic analysis in differen...

Royal jelly (RJ) and selenium (Se)–rich foods have well-known health benefits which are attributable to a broad range of pharmacologic effects including antioxidant, bacteriostatic, anticancer, and immunoregulatory activities. However, there was no study to combine Se with RJ. Here, Se-rich RJ (SRJ) was produced by feeding sodium selenite to honeyb...

Pollinations as a result of bees collecting pollen from flowers are vital for maintaining the subtle balance of the earth's ecological system. However, apiculture is facing a crisis owing to collapsing honey bee colonies, yet the reasons are still unclear. As young bees are the future backbone of a colony, their behaviors could reveal the developme...

The cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) protein family plays an important role in regulating life functions, such as the cell cycle and metabolism. This study reports the first cloning and functional analysis of A. cerana cerana CDK1 (AccCDK1). The distribution profile of AccCDK1 in different developmental periods and different tissues was determined. Th...

Honeybees show an important pollination ability and play vital roles in improving crop yields and increasing plant genetic diversity, thereby generating tremendous economic benefits for humans. However, honeybee survival is affected by a number of biological and abiotic stresses, including the effects of fungi, bacteria, viruses, parasites, and esp...

Honeybees cannot synthesize arachidonic acid (ARA) themselves, only obtain it from food. Most pollen is deficient or contains a small amount of ARA. The necessity of supplementary ARA in bees’ diet has not been studied. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary ARA levels on the growth and immunity of Apis mellifera ligu...

Royal jelly (RJ) and selenium (Se)-rich foods have well-known health benefits that are attributable to a broad range of pharmacological effects including antioxidant, anti-tumor, and immunoregulatory activities. However, the physiological effects of Se-rich RJ, which is produced by feeding Apis mellifera (Hymenoptera: Apidae) sodium selenite sucros...

The mandibular gland is an important exocrine gland of worker bees, which mainly secretes fatty acids and pheromones. Lipids have important roles in energy storage, membrane structure stabilization, and signaling. However, molecular underpinnings of mandibular gland development and lipid remodeling at the different physiological stages of worker be...

Royal jelly (RJ) is a well‐known traditional health food that has a wide range of pharmacological activities. In this study, mice were fed with different doses of RJ for 30 days and their antioxidant activities and gut microbiota were measured to examine the correlation between gut microbiota and overall health. RJ did not influence the feed consum...

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade pathway is a ubiquitous signal transduction pathway in eukaryotes that regulates a variety of immune responses. This study accomplished the first isolation of an AccMKK4 gene from Apis cerana cerana and explored its function. Yeast two-hybrid experiments proved that AccMKK4 can interact with Accp3...

Cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (P450s) play significant roles in protecting organisms from abiotic stress damage. Here, we report the sequence and characterization of a P450s gene ( AccCYP4AV1 ), isolated from Apis cerana cerana Fabricius. The open reading frame of AccCYP4AV1 is 1506 base pairs long and encodes a predicted protein of 501 amino acid...

UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs), being multifunctional detoxification enzymes, play a major role in the process of resistance to various pesticides in insects. However, the mechanism underlying the molecular regulation of pesticide resistance remains unclear, especially in Apis cerana cerana. In this study, all of the UGTs in Apis cerana cerana...

The polyandrous mating system of honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) has garnered widespread attention. Long-lived honeybee queens only mate early in maturation, and the sperm obtained from the aerial mating is stored in the spermatheca. The maintenance of sperm viability in the spermatheca is an intriguing and complex process. However, the key physiolog...

Odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) play an important role in odor perception and transport in insects. However, little is known about whether OBPs perform other functions in insects, particularly in Apis cerana cerana. Within this study, an OBP gene (AccOBP10) was isolated and identified from Apis cerana cerana. Both homology and phylogenetic relation...

There are many differences in external morphology and internal physiology between the Apis mellifera queen bee and worker bee, some of which are relevant to beekeeping production. These include reproductive traits, body size, royal jelly secreting properties, and visual system development, among others. The identification of candidate genes that co...

Background: The health of honeybee colonies is critical for bee products and agricultural production, and colony health is closely associated with the bacteria in the guts of honeybees. Although colony loss in winter is now the primary restriction in beekeeping, the effects of different sugars as winter food on the health of honeybee colonies are...

Background : The health of honeybee colonies is critical for bee products and agricultural production, and colony health is closely associated with the bacteria in the guts of honeybees. Although colony loss in winter is now the primary restriction in beekeeping, the effects of different sugars as winter food on the health of honeybee colonies are...

Background : The health of honeybee colonies is critical for bee products and agricultural production, and colony health is closely associated with the bacteria in the guts of honeybees. Although colony loss in winter is now the primary restriction in beekeeping, the effects of different sugars as winter food on the health of honeybee colonies are...

Selenium (Se), as an essential micronutrient, has been demonstrated to play an important role in life activities. In this study, we studied the effects of sucrose solutions containing sodium selenite on Apis mellifera (L.). We obtained the appropriate level of sodium selenite for A. mellifera by determining the life span by lab rearing, and then, w...

Cytochrome P450 monooxygenases (P450s) are widely distributed multifunctional enzymes that play crucial roles in insecticide detoxification or activation. In this study, to ascertain the molecular mechanisms of P450s in the detoxification of Chinese honeybees, Apis cerana cerana Fabricius (A. c. cerana), we isolated and characterized four new P450...

Winter is the honey bee’s non-productive season. The colony’s main task during the winter is to withstand the cold and to reduce bee losses. Losses during the winter can restrict the colony reproduction in spring, even more the production in the next whole year. Thus, the evaluation of the colony’s overwinter ability by studying its cold-hardiness...

Cytochrome P450s play critical roles in maintaining redox homeostasis and protecting organisms from the accumulation of toxic reactive oxygen species (ROS). The biochemical functions of the P450 family have essentially been associated with the metabolism of xenobiotics. Here, we sequenced and characterized three P450 genes, AccCYP314A1, AccCYP4AZ1,...

Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinases (MKKs) are important components of the MAPK signaling pathways, which play a key role in responding to stress and inflammatory stimuli. Here, a new MKK gene, AccMKK6, was identified and functionally analyzed in Apis cerana cerana. Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) and Western blot analysis demonstrated that...

Clip-domain serine proteases (Clip-SPs) mediate innate immunity and embryonic development in insects. However, the function of Clip-SPs in Apis cerana cerana is little known. Here, a Clip-SP gene, AccSp1, was identified. AccSp1 was mainly detected in third and sixth day instar larvae, dark-eyed pupae, and adults (1and 30 days post-emergence). In ad...

Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1) is a member of the cold shock domain protein superfamily and is involved in development, environmental stresses and DNA oxidative damage in many organisms. However, the precise functions of YB-1 are still not well understood in various insects, including bees. In the current study, we identified a YB-1 gene in Apis ce...

As one of the predominant pollinator, honeybees provide important ecosystem service to crops and wild plants, and generate great economic benefit for humans. Unfortunately, there is clear evidence of recent catastrophic honeybee colony failure in some areas, resulting in markedly negative environmental and economic effects. It has been demonstrated...

Insulin-like peptide 2 is an important gene in the insulin/insulin-like signaling pathway. The insulin-like peptide 2 gene (ILP-2) appears to play a key role in metabolism, growth, reproduction, stress resistance and aging. In this study, we isolated and characterized an ILP-2 gene from Apis cerana cerana known as AccILP-2. The full-length AccILP-2...

Serine proteinases play important roles in innate immunity and insect development. We isolated a serine proteinase gene, designated AccSp10, from the Chinese honeybees (Apis cerana cerana). RT-qPCR and a Western blot analysis at different pupal development stages indicated that AccSp10 might be involved in melanin formation in pupae and promote pup...

Cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5) is an unusual CDK whose function has been implicated in protecting the central nervous system (CNS) from oxidative damage. However, there have been few studies of CDK5 in insects. In this study, we identified the AccCDK5 gene from Apis cerana cerana and investigated its role in oxidation resistance. We found that Ac...

In eukaryotes, cytochrome c oxidase (COX) is a multimeric protein complex that is the last enzyme in the respiratory electron transport chain of mitochondria. Syntheses of cytochrome c oxidase (SCO) proteins are copper-donor chaperones involved in metalation of the CuA redox center of COX. However, its other precise actions are not yet understood....

Vitellogenin (Vg) is a yolk precursor protein in most oviparous females. However, Vg has not been studied in the Apis cerana cerana. In this work, the Vg gene of the A. cerana cerana has been cloned and sequenced. The gene codes for a protein consisting of 1770 amino acids in seven exons with a predicted molecular mass and isoelectric point of 200...

L-Leucine is an important factor for growth and development in animals. However, very little is known about the nutritional role and physiological function of L-leucine in honeybees. In this study, we determined the effects of L-leucine supplementation on protein synthesis and amino acid balance in honeybee larvae. First instar larvae were fed diff...

Most of the proteins contained in royal jelly (RJ) are secreted from the hypopharyngeal glands (HG) of young bees. Although generic protein composition of RJ has been investigated, little is known about how age-dependent changes on HG secretion affect RJ composition and their biological consequences. In this study, we identified differentially expr...

Transcriptome sequencing has become the main methodology for analyzing the relationship between genes and characteristics of interests, particularly those associated with diseases and economic traits. Because of its role of functional food for humans, commercial royal jelly (RJ) and its production are major research focuses in the field of apicultu...