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Similar but not the same: insights into the evolutionary history of paralogous sex-determining genes of the dwarf honey bee Apis florea.

ABSTRACT: Studying the fate of duplicated genes provides informative insight into the evolutionary plasticity of biological pathways to which they belong. In the paralogous sex-determining genes complementary sex determiner (csd) and feminizer (fem) of honey bee species (genus Apis), only heterozygous csd initiates female development. Here, the full-length coding sequences of the genes csd and fem of the phylogenetically basal dwarf honey bee Apis florea are characterized. Compared with other Apis species, remarkable evolutionary changes in the formation and localization of a protein-interacting (coiled-coil) motif and in the amino acids coding for the csd characteristic hypervariable region (HVR) are observed. Furthermore, functionally different csd alleles were isolated as genomic fragments from a random population sample. In the predicted potential specifying domain (PSD), a high ratio of ?N/?S=1.6 indicated positive selection, whereas signs of balancing selection, commonly found in other Apis species, are missing. Low nucleotide diversity on synonymous and genome-wide, non-coding sites as well as site frequency analyses indicated a strong impact of genetic drift in A. florea, likely linked to its biology. Along the evolutionary trajectory of ~30 million years of csd evolution, episodic diversifying selection seems to have acted differently among distinct Apis branches. Consistently low amino-acid differences within the PSD among pairs of functional heterozygous csd alleles indicate that the HVR is the most important region for determining allele specificity. We propose that in the early history of the lineage-specific fem duplication giving rise to csd in Apis, A. florea csd stands as a remarkable example for the plasticity of initial sex-determining signals.

SUBMITTER: Biewer M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4675869 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Similar but not the same: insights into the evolutionary history of paralogous sex-determining genes of the dwarf honey bee Apis florea.

Biewer M M Lechner S S Hasselmann M M

Heredity 20150708 1

Studying the fate of duplicated genes provides informative insight into the evolutionary plasticity of biological pathways to which they belong. In the paralogous sex-determining genes complementary sex determiner (csd) and feminizer (fem) of honey bee species (genus Apis), only heterozygous csd initiates female development. Here, the full-length coding sequences of the genes csd and fem of the phylogenetically basal dwarf honey bee Apis florea are characterized. Compared with other Apis species ...[more]

PMID: 26153222

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Exclusion from a social group is an effective way to avoid parasite transmission. This type of social removal has also been proposed as a form of collective defense, or social immunity, in eusocial insect groups. If parasitic modification of host behavior is widespread in social insects, the underlying physiological and neuronal mechanisms remain to be investigated. We studied this phenomenon in honey bees parasitized by the mite Varroa destructor or microsporidia Nosema ceranae, which make bees leave the hive precociously. We characterized the chemical, behavioral and neurogenomic changes in parasitized bees, and compared the effects of both parasites. RESULTS: Analysis of cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profiles by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrophotometry (GC-MS) showed changes in honey bees parasitized by either Nosema ceranae or Varroa destructor after 5 days of infestation. Levels of 10-HDA, an antiseptic important for social immunity, did not change in response to parasitism. Behavioral analysis of N. ceranae- or V. destructor- parasitized bees revealed no significant differences in their behavioral acts or social interactions with nestmates. Digital gene expression (DGE) analysis of parasitized honey bee brains demonstrated that, despite the difference in developmental stage at which the bee is parasitized, Nosema and Varroa-infested bees shared more gene changes with each other than with honey bee brain expression gene sets for forager or nurse castes. CONCLUSIONS: Parasitism by Nosema or Varroa induces changes to both the CHC profiles on the surface of the bee and transcriptomic profiles in the brain, but within the social context of the hive, does not result in observable effects on her behavior or behavior towards her. While parasitized bees are reported to leave the hive as foragers, their brain transcription profiles suggest that their behavior is not driven by the same molecular pathways that induce foraging behavior.

Dataset Information

Similar but not the same: insights into the evolutionary history of paralogous sex-determining genes of the dwarf honey bee Apis florea.

Publications

Similar but not the same: insights into the evolutionary history of paralogous sex-determining genes of the dwarf honey bee Apis florea.

Similar Datasets

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