Honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) is a model organism, contributing signi cant effect on global ecology by pollination and examining due to its social behaviour.
MethodsIn this study, barley-speci c Sukkula and Nikita retrotransposons were analysed using IRAP (Inter-Retrotransposon Ampli cation Polymorphism) marker technique, and the relationships between retrotransposon movements and development were also investigated in three different colonies of the Caucasian bee (Apis mellifera caucasica). Furthermore, transposon sequences belonging to Apis mellifera, Bombus terrestris, Triticum turgidum and Hordeum vulgare were also examined to gure out evolutionary relationships.
ResultsFor this purpose, a queen bee, ve worker bees, and ve larvae from each colony were studied. Both retrotransposons were found in all samples in three colonies with different polymorphism ratios (0-100% for Nikita and 0-67% for Sukkula). We also determined polymorphisms in queen-worker (0-83% for Nikita, 0-63% for Sukkula), queen-larvae (0-83% for Nikita, 0-43% for Sukkula) and worker-larvae comparisons (0-100% for Nikita, 0-63% for Sukkula) in colonies. Moreover, close relationships among transposons found in plant and insect genomes as a result of in silico evaluations to verify experimental results.
ConclusionThis work could be one of the rst studies to analyse plant-speci c retrotransposons' movements in honeybee genome. Results are expected to understand evolutionary relationships in terms of horizontal transfer of transposons among kingdoms.