Use of costic acid, a natural extract from Dittrichia viscosa, for the control of Varroa destructor, a parasite of the European honey bee

Kalliopi Sofou; Demosthenis Isaakidis; Apostolos Spyros; Anita Büttner; Athanassios Giannis; Haralambos E Katerinopoulos

doi:10.3762/bjoc.13.96

Use of costic acid, a natural extract from Dittrichia viscosa, for the control of Varroa destructor, a parasite of the European honey bee

Beilstein J Org Chem. 2017 May 18:13:952-959. doi: 10.3762/bjoc.13.96. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Kalliopi Sofou¹, Demosthenis Isaakidis¹, Apostolos Spyros¹, Anita Büttner^{2

3}, Athanassios Giannis², Haralambos E Katerinopoulos¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Crete, Voutes, Heraklion, 71003, Crete, Greece.
² Institut für Organische Chemie, Universität Leipzig, Johannisallee 29, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
³ recent address: Department of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany.

Abstract

Costic acid has been isolated from the plant Dittrichia viscosa and its efficacy against Varroa destructor, a parasite of Apis mellifera, the European honey bee, has been studied. Costic acid exhibited potent in vivo acaricidal activity against the parasite. Initial experiments showed that the compound is not toxic for human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) at concentrations of up to 230 micromolar (μM), indicating that costic acid could be used as a safe, low-cost and efficient agent for controlling varroosis in honey bee colonies.

Keywords: Apis mellifera; Dittrichia viscosa; Varroa destructor; natural products; varroosis.