Complex roles for a conserved two-component system in a honey bee symbiosis
- 1Indiana University, Bloomington
Abstract
Elucidating how microbes associate with their hosts and respond to different environments is fundamental to our understanding of symbiosis. Here, we investigate the molecular and genetic mechanisms enabling the honey bee symbiont Bombella apis to colonize and persist in harsh honey bee microenvironments, like royal jelly and the larval gut. By using evolved B. apis strains, we demonstrate that the broadly conserved two-component system (TCS) ChvGI is integral for the bacteriums ability to withstand royal jelly and the larval gut. Furthermore, we show that in B. apis ChvGI also regulates critical bacterial behaviors such as motility, flagellar production, and biofilm formation. In other Alphaproteobacteria, ChvGI is known as a master regulator that mediates the bacterial responses to stressors and is also found to be involved in symbiosis, often through the production of EPS and biofilm formation. Our work underscores the broader significance of ChvGI as an important TCS in Alphaproteobacteria that regulates bacterial behavior in response to different types of stressors and uncovers a genetic mechanism that allows an important honey bee symbiont to survive in diverse host environments.
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BibTeX
@misc{molinar2026complex,
title = {{Complex roles for a conserved two-component system in a honey bee symbiosis}},
author = {J. M. Molinar and A. J. Parish and D. T. Johnson and A. Trinidad and D. W. Rice and J. C. Trinidad and B. Stein and I. P. Reynolds and C. Fuqua and I. L. G. Newton},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.25.754351},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.25.754351v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Complex roles for a conserved two-component system in a honey bee symbiosis
AU - J. M. Molinar
AU - A. J. Parish
AU - D. T. Johnson
AU - A. Trinidad
AU - D. W. Rice
AU - J. C. Trinidad
AU - B. Stein
AU - I. P. Reynolds
AU - C. Fuqua
AU - I. L. G. Newton
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/25
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.25.754351
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.25.754351v1
AB - Elucidating how microbes associate with their hosts and respond to different environments is fundamental to our understanding of symbiosis. Here, we investigate the molecular and genetic mechanisms enabling the honey bee symbiont Bombella apis to colonize and persist in harsh honey bee microenvironments, like royal jelly and the larval gut. By using evolved B. apis strains, we demonstrate that the broadly conserved two-component system (TCS) ChvGI is integral for the bacteriums ability to withstand royal jelly and the larval gut. Furthermore, we show that in B. apis ChvGI also regulates critical bacterial behaviors such as motility, flagellar production, and biofilm formation. In other Alphaproteobacteria, ChvGI is known as a master regulator that mediates the bacterial responses to stressors and is also found to be involved in symbiosis, often through the production of EPS and biofilm formation. Our work underscores the broader significance of ChvGI as an important TCS in Alphaproteobacteria that regulates bacterial behavior in response to different types of stressors and uncovers a genetic mechanism that allows an important honey bee symbiont to survive in diverse host environments.
ER -