The Odorant-Binding Protein Gene obp11 Shows Different Spatiotemporal Roles in the Olfactory System of Apis mellifera ligustica and Apis cerana cerana

Abstract

For social insects such as the honeybee, olfactory language plays a critical role in colony life, with important functional roles for work within and outside of the hive. According to honeybee biology, newly emerged bees are developmentally immature (Calderone, 1998), and they join a caste that mainly cleans cells while awaiting functional maturity (Winston, 1987). From the ages of 4-12 days (Seeley, 1982), the nursing caste feeds larvae or the queen for about 1 week (Seeley, 1979). Middle-aged bees (12-21 days old) build and maintain the nest, and receive and process nectar (Johnson, 2003, 2008a). After 21 days, workers initiate tasks outside of the nest (foraging nectar and pollen, scouting, defending) (

Gene expression is stronger associated with behaviour than with age and fertility in ant workers

“…Especially the expression of MVg2 and MVg3 was tightly linked to each other. Moreover, we found Neuronal acetylcholine receptor subunit alpha-3 , which binds the neurotransmitter acetylcholine [93], and the Odorant binding protein 16 , which is part of the olfactory system in honey bees [70]. Enriched GO terms were grouped into eight biological processes, mainly represented by lipid transport and lipid biosynthesis (Figure 3).…”

“…Many studies compared gene expression of young brood carers and old foragers to identify genes associated with behaviour [e.g. 25,28,53,54,66–70]. We investigated the effect of not controlling for age by comparing gene expression of young brood carers (n = 8) and old foragers (n = 8) from control colonies (Figure 1) using pairwise comparison (age confounded PWC) in edgeR (e.g.…”

Gene expression is more strongly associated with behavioural specialization than with age or fertility in ant workers

“…Moreover, downstream analyses (e.g., GO term enrichment, gene network analyses and metabolic pathway comparisons) will also be affected, possibly leading to wrong conclusions. The use of age‐confounded data sets might therefore have contributed to the lack of consensus on clear transcriptomic patterns of worker specialized on different behaviours, as many studies investigating gene expression in different behavioural castes did not control for age and fertility (Cardoso‐Júnior et al, ; Feldmeyer et al, ; Ingram et al, ; Johnson & Jasper, ; Khamis et al, ; Manfredini et al, ; Qiu et al, ; Scheiner, Entler, et al, ; Scheiner, Reim, et al, ; Zhao et al, ). Similar conclusions were recently drawn from a gene expression comparison between queens and workers, as uncontrolled variation was added by confounding age when comparing gene expression between castes (Lucas et al, ).…”

“…The inconsistency across studies in the association between gene expression and worker task choice may reflect species‐specific mechanisms regulating behavioural specialization or differences across studies regarding experimental design. Gene expression patterns associated with behavioural specialization of workers are typically identified by comparing brood carers and foragers that not only differ in behaviour but also in age and fertility (Cardoso‐Júnior et al, ; Feldmeyer et al, ; Ingram et al, ; Johnson & Jasper, ; Khamis et al, ; Manfredini et al, ; Qiu et al, ; Scheiner, Entler, Barron, Scholl, & Thamm, ; Zhao et al, ), two factors that are linked to gene expression (Alaux et al, ; Feldmeyer et al, ; Harrison, Hammond, & Mallon, ; Lucas, Romiguier, & Keller, ; Nilsen et al, ; Whitfield, Cziko, & Robinson, ). Not experimentally controlling for age or fertility (in species with potentially fertile workers) when contrasting brood carer and forager transcriptomes could thus lead to confounded data sets and the identification of transcriptomic patterns being linked to any of the three factors or combinations thereof.…”

Various Bee Pheromones Binding Affinity, Exclusive Chemosensillar Localization, and Key Amino Acid Sites Reveal the Distinctive Characteristics of Odorant-Binding Protein 11 in the Eastern Honey Bee, Apis cerana

“…ASP1 (OBP1) was expressed abundantly on the sensilla placoidea in drone antennae (Zhao et al, 2013b ), and it can bind queen pheromone component with the static binding mode (Weng et al, 2015 ). OBP11 have the highest expression in the stage of foragers, which display the highest olfactory sensitity in the A. cerana (Zhao et al, 2013a ). In order to protect unique domestic bee resources in China, it is necessary to further study the physiological mechanisms of olfactory recognition system related to social behavior.…”