2025年8月20日出版的《自然》杂志发表了牛津大学Geraldine A. Wright小组的最新成果，他们的研究显示，工程酵母为蜜蜂提供罕见但必需的花粉甾醇。

在这里，研究小组描述了蜜蜂营养的技术进步，对全球粮食安全有着广泛的影响。研究人员首先测量了存在于蜜蜂组织中的固醇的数量和比例。利用这些信息，该研究团队对一种产油酵母解脂耶氏菌进行了基因工程改造，为蜜蜂生产一种必需固醇的混合物，并将这种酵母菌菌株加入到营养完整的饮食中。完全饲喂该饲料的群体比不饲喂适当甾醇饲料的群体育雏期明显延长。这种方法的主题是将甾醇补充剂纳入花粉替代品将使蜂群在没有花花粉的情况下产生育雏。优化饮食的主题是这种酵母菌株也可以减少蜜蜂物种之间对自然花卉资源的竞争，并阻止野生蜜蜂种群的下降。

据悉，蜜蜂是重要的作物传粉者，但由于农业集约化和气候变化，它们越来越面临花粉匮乏的问题。频繁的开花荒期和高密度的饲养条件削弱了蜂群，这往往导致它们的死亡。养蜂人给蜂群提供花粉替代品，但这些饲料不能维持蜂群的繁殖，因为它们缺乏花粉中必需的甾醇。

附：英文原文

Title: Engineered yeast provides rare but essential pollen sterols for honeybees

Author: Moore, Elynor, de Sousa, Raquel T., Felsinger, Stella, Arnesen, Jonathan A., Dyekjr, Jane D., Farman, Dudley I., Gonalves, Rui F. S., Stevenson, Philip C., Borodina, Irina, Wright, Geraldine A.

Issue&Volume: 2025-08-20

Abstract: Honeybees are important crop pollinators, but they increasingly face pollen starvation as a result of agricultural intensification and climate change1. Frequent flowering dearth periods and high-density rearing conditions weaken colonies, which often leads to their demise2. Beekeepers provide colonies with pollen substitutes, but these feeds do not sustain brood production because they lack essential sterols found in pollen3,4. Here we describe a technological advance in honeybee nutrition with wide-reaching impacts on global food security. We first measured the quantity and proportion of sterols present in honeybee tissues. Using this information, we genetically engineered a strain of the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica to produce a mixture of essential sterols for bees and incorporated this yeast strain into an otherwise nutritionally complete diet. Colonies exclusively fed with this diet reared brood for significantly longer than those fed diets without suitable sterols. The use of this method to incorporate sterol supplements into pollen substitutes will enable honeybee colonies to produce brood in the absence of floral pollen. Optimized diets created using this yeast strain could also reduce competition between bee species for access to natural floral resources and stem the decline in wild bee populations.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09431-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09431-y