# Bees fed pollen survive better than those fed synthetic protein



## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

good one jwchestnut, thanks for sharing it.

richard cryberg, if you catch this and happen to recall an exchange you and i had about whether the upregulation of detoxification pathways was a good or bad thing...

are the authors here suggesting that such upregulation is a net positive for the bee?


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> good one jwchestnut, thanks for sharing it.
> 
> richard cryberg, if you catch this and happen to recall an exchange you and i had about whether the upregulation of detoxification pathways was a good or bad thing...
> 
> are the authors here suggesting that such upregulation is a net positive for the bee?


Upregulation of some detoxification route by subjecting the animal to another toxin will often provide some protection to a second toxin, such as a pyrethroid . For example, DDT is registered as a human pharmaceutical the last I looked it up. It use is as an anti toxin in some types of acute poisoning cases. The DDT is very difficult for your body to metabolize and kicks all kinds of gene influenced pathways in gear in your liver attempting to get rid of the DDT. Those same pathways get rid of the acute toxins that might kill you without the DDT treatment.

All upregulation does is expose the control regions for the genes so the genes can replicate faster with the end result being more production of some protein enzyme in most cases. Genes all by themselves have a natural off state. The whole DNA molecule is wound fairly tightly on a protein core called a histone. In general this winding is tight enough so the control regions for any given gene are unavailable or nearly unavailable for attachment of the chemicals that copy DNA into RNA. Those tight wound sections can be loosened by chemical attacks where some foreign material which is generally a small molecule binds to the DNA/histone complex loosening the structure enough that replication chemicals have room to bind. Or in some cases a small increase in temperature can loosen enough hydrogen bonds between the two DNA strands to allow the replication chemicals room to bind. Those binding sites are often quite tuned to very specific chemicals that are important in that particular metabolic path way. In the bee case chemicals often encountered in the environment that have some toxic action on the bee that needs to be controlled. The pyrethroid by itself probably does not bind to those sites at all so by itself would not activate the genes. So, without the naturally occurring toxin exposure to a pyrethroid would be worse.


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## squarepeg (Jul 9, 2010)

understood, and many thanks for that explanation. so by extension would ramped up detoxification impart a benefit beyond pyrethroid to help with other toxins be they man made and/or naturally occuring? i.e. would there be any side benefit to having some background level of upregulation in play at all times? and, is that what the bees' natural diet appears to be accomplishing? perhaps i am reading too much into it.


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## Richard Cryberg (May 24, 2013)

squarepeg said:


> understood, and many thanks for that explanation. so by extension would ramped up detoxification impart a benefit beyond pyrethroid to help with other toxins be they man made and/or naturally occuring? i.e. would there be any side benefit to having some background level of upregulation in play at all times? and, is that what the bees' natural diet appears to be accomplishing? perhaps i am reading too much into it.


It depends on the metabolic degradation pathways. Some other toxins without doubt use the same pathways, but not all of them and probably not even most of them.


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