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Recipe for a busy bee: microRNAs in Honey Bee caste determination.

ABSTRACT: Social caste determination in the honey bee is assumed to be determined by the dietary status of the young larvae and translated into physiological and epigenetic changes through nutrient-sensing pathways. We have employed Illumina/Solexa sequencing to examine the small RNA content in the bee larval food, and show that worker jelly is enriched in miRNA complexity and abundance relative to royal jelly. The miRNA levels in worker jelly were 7-215 fold higher than in royal jelly, and both jellies showed dynamic changes in miRNA content during the 4(th) to 6(th) day of larval development. Adding specific miRNAs to royal jelly elicited significant changes in queen larval mRNA expression and morphological characters of the emerging adult queen bee. We propose that miRNAs in the nurse bee secretions constitute an additional element in the regulatory control of caste determination in the honey bee.

SUBMITTER: Guo X

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3862878 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Recipe for a busy bee: microRNAs in Honey Bee caste determination.

Guo Xiangqian X Su Songkun S Skogerboe Geir G Dai Shuanjin S Li Wenfeng W Li Zhiguo Z Liu Fang F Ni Ruifeng R Guo Yu Y Chen Shenglu S Zhang Shaowu S Chen Runsheng R

PloS one 20131211 12

Social caste determination in the honey bee is assumed to be determined by the dietary status of the young larvae and translated into physiological and epigenetic changes through nutrient-sensing pathways. We have employed Illumina/Solexa sequencing to examine the small RNA content in the bee larval food, and show that worker jelly is enriched in miRNA complexity and abundance relative to royal jelly. The miRNA levels in worker jelly were 7-215 fold higher than in royal jelly, and both jellies s ...[more]

PMID: 24349106

Similar Datasets

Recipe for a busy bee: MicroRNAs in honey bee caste determination

2014-01-06 | GSE44853 | GEO

Recipe for a busy bee: MicroRNAs in honey bee caste determination (microRNA array)

Project description:Social caste determination in the honey bee is assumed to be determined by the dietary status of the young larvae and translated into physiological and epigenetic changes through nutrient-sensing pathways. We have employed microRNA gene-microarray, and observed that both worker jelly and royal jelly showed dynamic changes in miRNA content during the 4th to 6th day of larval development . Adding specific miRNAs to royal jelly elicited significant changes in queen larval mRNA expression and in morphological characters of the emerging adult queen bee. We propose that miRNAs in the nurse bee secretions constitute an additional element in the regulatory control of caste determination in the honey bee.

2013-12-31 | GSE50457 | GEO

Recipe for a busy bee: MicroRNAs in honey bee caste determination

Project description:Social caste determination in the honey bee is assumed to be determined by the dietary status of the young larvae and translated into physiological and epigenetic changes through nutrient-sensing pathways. We have employed Illumina/Solexa sequencing to examine the small RNA content in the bee larval food source, and show that worker jelly is enriched in miRNA complexity and abundance relative to royal jelly. The miRNA levels in worker jelly were 7-215 fold higher than in royal jelly, and both jellies showed dynamic changes in miRNA content during the 4th to 6th day of larval development. Adding specific miRNAs to royal jelly elicited significant changes in queen larval mRNA expression and in morphological characters of the emerging adult queen bee. We propose that miRNAs in the nurse bee secretions constitute an additional element in the regulatory control of caste determination in the honey bee. We collected worker and royal jelly of the Italian honeybee (ZND No.1, Apis mellifera ligustica) at 73~90 hours (4th-day larvae), 97~114 hours (5th-day larvae), and 121~138 hours (6th-day larvae) after hatching. After total RNA was extractedM-BM- and quantified , relative equal amounts of total RNAs from each of the three sampling days were pooled into respectively worker and royal jelly samples, and the fraction of small RNAs less than 30nt long was retained and sequenced on the Illumina/Solexa high-throughput platform (HTP).

2014-01-06 | E-GEOD-44853 | biostudies-arrayexpress

Recipe for a busy bee: MicroRNAs in honey bee caste determination (microRNA array)

2013-12-31 | E-GEOD-50457 | biostudies-arrayexpress

MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination.

Project description:The cellular mechanisms employed by some organisms to produce contrasting morphological and reproductive phenotypes from the same genome remains one of the key unresolved issues in biology. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) use differential feeding and a haplodiploid sex determination system to generate three distinct organismal outcomes from the same genome. Here we investigate the honeybee female and male caste-specific microRNA and transcriptomic molecular signatures during a critical time of larval development. Both previously undetected and novel miRNAs have been discovered, expanding the inventory of these genomic regulators in invertebrates. We show significant differences in the microRNA and transcriptional profiles of diploid females relative to haploid drone males as well as between reproductively distinct females (queens and workers). Queens and drones show gene enrichment in physio-metabolic pathways, whereas workers show enrichment in processes associated with neuronal development, cell signalling and caste biased structural differences. Interestingly, predicted miRNA targets are primarily associated with non-physio-metabolic genes, especially neuronal targets, suggesting a mechanistic disjunction from DNA methylation that regulates physio-metabolic processes. Accordingly, miRNA targets are under-represented in methylated genes. Our data show how a common set of genetic elements are differentially harnessed by an organism, which may provide the remarkable level of developmental flexibility required.

| S-EPMC4704047 | biostudies-literature

Differential gene expression underlying ovarian phenotype determination in honey bee, Apis mellifera, caste development

Project description:Adult honey bee queens and workers drastically differ in ovary size. This adult ovary phenotype difference becomes established during the last two larval instars, when massive programmed cell death in the ovaries of worker larvae leads to the degeneration and removal of 95-99% of the ovariole anlagen. The higher juvenile hormone (JH) levels in queen larvae protect their ovaries against such degeneration. To gain insights into the molecular architecture underlying this divergence critical for adult caste fate we performed a microarray analysis contrasting RNA extracts from fourth and early fifth instar queen and worker ovaries. While for the fourth instar we found differential expression (log2FC > 1.0) for only nine genes, the number of differentially represented transcripts (DRTs) increased to 56 in early fifth instar ovaries. From these, 18 had their expression levels further analyzed by real-time PCR (RT-qPCR). For 13 of these the expression differed significantly between queen and worker ovaries at least one time point in development, and interestingly, genes with enzyme functions were overexpressed in workers, while genes related to transcription and signaling were so in queens. For the RT-qPCR confirmed genes we further analyzed their response to JH, revealing a significant up-regulation for two genes, one encoding a short chain dehydrogenase (SDR) and the other heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90). Five other genes, including Hsp60 and hexamerin 70b, were significantly down-regulated by JH. As SDR genes have previously come up as differentially expressed in different transcriptome assays in honey bee larvae, and heat shock proteins are involved in hormone responses, these are interesting candidates for further functional assays.

2016-10-06 | GSE81118 | GEO

The transcriptomic and evolutionary signature of social interactions regulating honey bee caste development.

Project description:The caste fate of developing female honey bee larvae is strictly socially regulated by adult nurse workers. As a result of this social regulation, nurse-expressed genes as well as larval-expressed genes may affect caste expression and evolution. We used a novel transcriptomic approach to identify genes with putative direct and indirect effects on honey bee caste development, and we subsequently studied the relative rates of molecular evolution at these caste-associated genes. We experimentally induced the production of new queens by removing the current colony queen, and we used RNA sequencing to study the gene expression profiles of both developing larvae and their caregiving nurses before and after queen removal. By comparing the gene expression profiles of queen-destined versus worker-destined larvae as well as nurses observed feeding these two types of larvae, we identified larval and nurse genes associated with caste development. Of 950 differentially expressed genes associated with caste, 82% were expressed in larvae with putative direct effects on larval caste, and 18% were expressed in nurses with putative indirect effects on caste. Estimated selection coefficients suggest that both nurse and larval genes putatively associated with caste are rapidly evolving, especially those genes associated with worker development. Altogether, our results suggest that indirect effect genes play important roles in both the expression and evolution of socially influenced traits such as caste.

| S-EPMC4662310 | biostudies-literature

Dopamine production in the brain is associated with caste-specific morphology and behavior in an artificial intermediate honey bee caste.

Project description:Caste polymorphism in eusocial insects is based on morphological plasticity and linked to physiological and behavioral characteristics. To test the possibility that dopamine production in the brain is associated with the caste-specific morphology and behavior in female honey bees, an intermediate caste was produced via artificial rearing using different amounts of diet, before quantifying the dopamine levels and conducting behavioral tests. In field colonies, individual traits such as mandibular shape, number of ovarioles, diameter of spermatheca, and dopamine levels in the brain differed significantly between workers and queens. Females given 1.5 times the amount of artificial diet that control worker receives during the larval stage in the laboratory had characteristics intermediate between castes. The dopamine levels in the brain were positively correlated with the mandibular shape indexes, number of ovarioles, and spermatheca diameter among artificially reared females. The dopamine levels were significantly higher in females with mandibular notches than those without. In fighting experiments with the intermediate caste females, the winners had significantly higher dopamine levels in the brain than the losers. Brain levels of tyrosine were positively correlated with those of catecholamines but not phenolamines, thereby suggesting a strong metabolic relationship between tyrosine and dopamine. Thus, the caste-specific characteristics of the honey bee are potentially continuous in the same manner as those in primitively eusocial species. Dopamine production in the brain is associated with the continuous caste-specific morphology, as well as being linked to the amount of tyrosine taken from food, and it supports the aggressive behavior of queen-type females.

| S-EPMC7746283 | biostudies-literature

Extent and complexity of RNA processing in honey bee queen and worker caste development.

Project description:The distinct honeybee (Apis mellifera) worker and queen castes have become a model for the study of genomic mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity. Here we performed a nanopore-based direct RNA sequencing with exceptionally long reads to compare the mRNA transcripts between queen and workers at three points during their larval development. We found thousands of significantly differentially expressed transcript isoforms (DEIs) between queen and worker larvae. These DEIs were formatted by a flexible splicing system. We showed that poly(A) tails participated in this caste differentiation by negatively regulating the expression of DEIs. Hundreds of isoforms uniquely expressed in either queens or workers during their larval development, and isoforms were expressed at different points in queen and worker larval development demonstrating a dynamic relationship between isoform expression and developmental mechanisms. These findings show the full complexity of RNA processing and transcript expression in honey bee phenotypic plasticity.

| S-EPMC9097701 | biostudies-literature

MicroRNAs Associated with Caste Determination and Differentiation in a Primitively Eusocial Insect.

Project description:In eusocial Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps), queen and worker adult castes typically arise via environmental influences. A fundamental challenge is to understand how a single genome can thereby produce alternative phenotypes. A powerful approach is to compare the molecular basis of caste determination and differentiation along the evolutionary trajectory between primitively and advanced eusocial species, which have, respectively, relatively undifferentiated and strongly differentiated adult castes. In the advanced eusocial honeybee, Apis mellifera, studies suggest that microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in the molecular basis of caste determination and differentiation. To investigate how miRNAs affect caste in eusocial evolution, we used deep sequencing and Northern blots to isolate caste-associated miRNAs in the primitively eusocial bumblebee Bombus terrestris. We found that the miRNAs Bte-miR-6001-5p and -3p are more highly expressed in queen- than in worker-destined late-instar larvae. These are the first caste-associated miRNAs from outside advanced eusocial Hymenoptera, so providing evidence for caste-associated miRNAs occurring relatively early in eusocial evolution. Moreover, we found little evidence that miRNAs previously shown to be associated with caste in A. mellifera were differentially expressed across caste pathways in B. terrestris, suggesting that, in eusocial evolution, the caste-associated role of individual miRNAs is not conserved.

| S-EPMC5374498 | biostudies-literature

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