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Field study results on the probability and risk of a horizontal gene transfer from transgenic herbicide-resistant oilseed rape pollen to gut bacteria of bees

  • Applied Genetics and Molecular Biotechnology
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Abstract

Bees are specifically subjected to intimate contacts with transgenic plants due to their feeding activities on pollen. In this study, the probability and ecological risk of a gene transfer from pollen to gut bacteria of bees was investigated with larvae of Apis mellifera (honeybee), Bombus terrestris (bumblebee), and Osmia bicornis (red mason bee), all collected at a flowering transgenic oilseed rape field. The plants were genetically engineered with the pat-gene, conferring resistance against glufosinate (syn. phosphinothricin), a glutamine-synthetase inhibitor in plants and microorganisms. Ninety-six bacterial strains were isolated and characterized by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, revealing that Firmicutes represented 58% of the isolates, Actinobacteria 31%, and Proteobacteria 11%, respectively. Of all isolates, 40% were resistant to 1 mM glufosinate, and 11% even to 10 mM. Resistant phenotypes were found in all phylogenetic groups. None of the resistant phenotypes carried the recombinant pat-gene in its genome. The threshold of detecting gene transfer in this field study was relatively insensitive due to the high background of natural glufosinate resistance. However, the broad occurrence of glufosinate-resistant bacteria from different phylogenetic groups suggests that rare events of horizontal gene transfer will not add significantly to natural bacterial glufosinate resistance.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support of Martina Sick and Stefan Kühne, as well as other members of the Institute for Integrated Plant Protection, Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Kleinmachnow, Germany. We thank Anja B. Dohrmann and Dina Führmann for discussion. The work was financially supported by the Federal Ministry for Research and Education, BMBF (Research Grant 0312628E).

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  1. Kathrin I. Mohr

    Present address: Experimentelle Phykologie und Sammlung von Algenkulturen (EPSAG), Albrecht-von-Haller Institut für Pflanzenwissenschaften, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

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  1. Institut für Agrarökologie, Bundesforschungsanstalt für Landwirtschaft (FAL), Bundesallee 50, 38116, Braunschweig, Germany

    Kathrin I. Mohr & Christoph C. Tebbe

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  1. Kathrin I. Mohr
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Correspondence to Christoph C. Tebbe.

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Mohr, K.I., Tebbe, C.C. Field study results on the probability and risk of a horizontal gene transfer from transgenic herbicide-resistant oilseed rape pollen to gut bacteria of bees. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 75, 573–582 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-007-0846-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-007-0846-7

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