Proteome profile and lentiviral transduction of cultured honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) cells

Honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) play a vital role in agriculture as pollinators, and serve as model organisms of social behaviour and immunity. The lack of both immortalized cell lines and methods to introduce recombinant DNA reliably into primary cells hinders cellular and molecular studies in this organism. We hereby demonstrate the expression of a GFP gene delivered by lentivirus transduction to cultured embryonic cells. The success of this approach indicates that viral transduction could be used to deliver constitutively active oncogenes in order to immortalize honey bee cells. We were able to revive cells successfully after several months of cryogenic storage and we show how the proteome varies between freshly collected and cultured embryonic cells.