Introduction

The 2022 iGEM Team from Lund University would like to present BEECILLI, our project which centers around the conservation of one of the most important pollinators – the honey bee.

The honey bee Apis mellifera is one of the most important pollinators¹, which makes it a crucial part of our ecosystem. Sadly, bee populations have been steadily declining over the past decades² due to a number of devastating environmental factors, which are contributing to colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon describing the disappearance of the majority of adult worker bees from an otherwise healthy hive with a queen and brood.

Factors contributing to the decline can be split up into five categories – malnutrition, parasites and pathogens, habitat loss, climate change, and pesticide exposure. With Beecilli, we wanted to address the problem of pesticide exposure.

Glyphosate is the most widely sold pesticide within the European Union representing 33% of the herbicide volume sold in 2017³. The chemical has been shown to contribute to colony decline by negatively affecting the gut microbiome of bees, thereby increasing their susceptibility to infection³.

To increase bee survival our team has designed a probiotic that can degrade glyphosate. We have chosen to modify Bacillus subtilis, a bacterium naturally present in the bee’s gut microbiome, and introduced DNA for a glyphosate-degrading enzyme into their genome. When this microorganisms is introduced to the honey bee gut, we hope that bees become more resilient to the effects of glyphosate.

Nearly a year ago, we assembled a team of varied talents and perspectives to work on our iGEM project. Now that we are approaching the finish line, we're proud to present a project we've all contributed to. Big thanks goes to our supervisors and our sponsors without whom this project would simply be impossible (or at the very least exceedingly mediocre). Read more about us on the team page!

Sponsors

Our sincerest gratitude goes out to our sponsors for supporting this project and we hope they chose to continue supporting student innovation! Our sincerest thanks to:

Lund university

They were our primary funding source and helped us to lay the foundation for our project right from the beginning.

LKM-Foundation

They were our primary funding source and helped us to lay the foundation for our project right from the beginning.

Ampliqon

They provided us with different PCR products and enzymes for our lab work.

IDT (Integrated DNA Technologies)

They provided us with upto 20kb of free gene fragments.

New England Biolabs

They provided us with reagents for our cloning experiments.

Eurofins

They provided us with gene sequencing services.

Twist Biosience

They provided us with upto 10kb of free gene fragments.

Benchling

They provided us with a digital lab book for documenting our experiments.

Biorender

They provided us with software tools to create our own illustrations.