Behavior and molecular physiology of nurses of worker and queen larvae in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

He, Xingjian; Tian, Liu Qing; Barron, Andrew B.; Guan, Cui; Liu, Hao; Wu, Xiao; Zeng, Zhi

doi:10.1016/j.aspen.2014.10.006

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…The activation of S6k by royalactin, a royal jelly protein, has been found to play a role in the increase of body size in queens33. The identification of genes encoding ribosomal proteins ( S6k, mRpL38 ) is consistent with the findings of several proteomics studies, in which differential expression of ribosomal proteins in nurse bees have been observed293435.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Whole-genome resequencing of honeybee drones to detect genomic selection in a population managed for royal jelly

Wragg

Marti-Marimon

Basso

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Four main evolutionary lineages of A. mellifera have been described including eastern Europe (C) and western and northern Europe (M). Many apiculturists prefer bees from the C lineage due to their docility and high productivity. In France, the routine importation of bees from the C lineage has resulted in the widespread admixture of bees from the M lineage. The haplodiploid nature of the honeybee Apis mellifera, and its small genome size, permits affordable and extensive genomics studies. As a pilot study of a larger project to characterise French honeybee populations, we sequenced 60 drones sampled from two commercial populations managed for the production of honey and royal jelly. Results indicate a C lineage origin, whilst mitochondrial analysis suggests two drones originated from the O lineage. Analysis of heterozygous SNPs identified potential copy number variants near to genes encoding odorant binding proteins and several cytochrome P450 genes. Signatures of selection were detected using the hapFLK haplotype-based method, revealing several regions under putative selection for royal jelly production. The framework developed during this study will be applied to a broader sampling regime, allowing the genetic diversity of French honeybees to be characterised in detail.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 81%

Whole-genome resequencing of honeybee drones to detect genomic selection in a population managed for royal jelly

Wragg

Marti-Marimon

Basso

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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“…Contrary to findings in honey bees [39,40], we found no behavioral or transcriptomic evidence for nurse specialization on larval caste. This lack of specialization is somewhat surprising, given that worker-and reproductive-destined larvae likely have different nutritional needs [31,[35][36][37].…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, recent research in the ant Camponotus floridanus found that nurse workers transfer juvenile hormone, microRNAs, hydrocarbons, various peptides, and other compounds during feeding [38], providing a potential further mechanism for nurses to provide stage-and caste-specific nutrition to larvae that may regulate larval development. Recent research in honey bees (Apis mellifera) suggests that nurse workers do show both behavioral and physiological specialization [39,40] on larval caste. However, these studies did not test for specialization on larval instar and, to the best of our knowledge, no previous study has investigated the potential for nurse specialization on caste or larval stage in ants.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ant nurse workers exhibit behavioral and transcriptomic signatures of specialization on larval stage

Walsh

Warner

Kase

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Division of labor within and between the worker and queen castes is thought to underlie the tremendous success of social insects. Colonies might benefit if subsets of nurse workers specialize in caring for larvae of a certain stage or caste, given that nutritional requirements depend on larval stage and caste. We used short-(<1 hr) and long-term (ten days) behavioral observations together with transcriptomic analysis to determine whether nurses of the pharaoh ant Monomorium pharaonis exhibit such behavioral and/or physiological specialization. We found that nurses were behaviorally specialized based on larval instar but not on larval caste. This specialization was widespread, with 56% of nurses in the short-term and between 22-27% in the long-term showing significant specialization. We also found transcriptomic signatures of nurse specialization on larval stage but not caste. Genes associated with nurse specialization included vitellogenin and mrjp2, which have previously been implicated in the transfer of nutrition from nurse to larvae and the regulation of larval development and caste, as well as other genes coding for secreted proteins, which may also be passed from nurses to larvae via trophallaxis. Altogether, our results provide the first evidence in any social insect for a division of labor among nurse workers based on larval stage.

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“…All significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were mapped to terms in the Gene Ontology (GO) database. The GO enrichment analysis of functional significance used a hypergeometric test (P-value < 0.05 indicates the significance) (He et al, 2014;Qin et al, 2014) to identify significantly enriched GO terms in DEGs compared to the complete genome. DEGs from queen versus drone larvae and worker versus drone larvae comparisons were selected for the GO enrichment analysis.…”

Section: Identification Of Differentially Expressed Genesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of honeybee (Apis mellifera) queen, worker and drone larvae by RNA‐Seq

Jiang

Zhou

et al. 2017

Insect Science

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Honeybees (Apis mellifera) have haplodiploid sex determination: males develop from unfertilized eggs and females develop from fertilized ones. The differences in larval food also determine the development of females. Here we compared the total somatic gene expression profiles of 2-day and 4-day-old drone, queen and worker larvae by RNA-Seq. The results from a co-expression network analysis on all expressed genes showed that 2-day-old drone and worker larvae were closer in gene expression profiles than 2-day-old queen larvae. This indicated that for young larvae (2-day-old) environmental factors such as larval diet have a greater effect on gene expression profiles than ploidy or sex determination. Drones had the most distinct gene expression profiles at the 4-day larval stage, suggesting that haploidy, or sex dramatically affects the gene expression of honeybee larvae. Drone larvae showed fewer differences in gene expression profiles at the 2-day and 4-day time points than the worker and queen larval comparisons (598 against 1190 and 1181), suggesting a different pattern of gene expression regulation during the larval development of haploid males compared to diploid females. This study indicates that early in development the queen caste has the most distinct gene expression profile, perhaps reflecting the very rapid growth and morphological specialization of this caste compared to workers and drones. Later in development the haploid male drones have the most distinct gene expression profile, perhaps reflecting the influence of ploidy or sex determination on gene expression.

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Behavior and molecular physiology of nurses of worker and queen larvae in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

Whole-genome resequencing of honeybee drones to detect genomic selection in a population managed for royal jelly

Whole-genome resequencing of honeybee drones to detect genomic selection in a population managed for royal jelly

Ant nurse workers exhibit behavioral and transcriptomic signatures of specialization on larval stage

A comparison of honeybee (Apis mellifera) queen, worker and drone larvae by RNA‐Seq

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