Dataset Information

MKast is dispensable for normal development and sexual maturation of the male European honeybee.

ABSTRACT: The European honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) exhibits various social behaviors. The molecular and neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors have long been explored, but causal relations between genes or neurons and behaviors remain to be elucidated because effective gene manipulation methods in the honeybee have not been available until recently. We recently established a basic technology to produce mutant honeybee drones using CRISPR/Cas9. Here we produced mutant drones using CRISPR/Cas9 targeting mKast, which is preferentially expressed in a certain subtype of class I Kenyon cells that comprise the mushroom bodies in the honeybee brain. By immunoblot analysis, we showed that mKast protein expression was completely lost in the mutant drone heads. In addition, during the production process of homozygous mutant workers, we demonstrated that heterozygous mutant workers could be produced by artificial insemination of wild-type queens with the sperm of mutant drones, indicating that mKast mutant drones were sexually mature. These results demonstrate that mKast is dispensable for normal development and sexual maturation in drone honeybees, and allow us to proceed with the production of homozygous mutant workers for the analysis of a particular gene by gene knockout in the future.

SUBMITTER: Kohno H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6104065 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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mKast is dispensable for normal development and sexual maturation of the male European honeybee.

Kohno Hiroki H Kubo Takeo T

Scientific reports 20180821 1

The European honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) exhibits various social behaviors. The molecular and neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors have long been explored, but causal relations between genes or neurons and behaviors remain to be elucidated because effective gene manipulation methods in the honeybee have not been available until recently. We recently established a basic technology to produce mutant honeybee drones using CRISPR/Cas9. Here we produced mutant drones using CRISPR/Cas9 target ...[more]

PMID: 30131569

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Project description:BackgroundThe vertebrate brain plays a critical role in the regulation of sexual maturation and reproduction by integrating environmental information with developmental and endocrine status. The European eel Anguilla anguilla is an important species in which to better understand the neuroendocrine factors that control reproduction because it is an endangered species, has a complex life cycle that includes two extreme long distance migrations with both freshwater and seawater stages and because it occupies a key position within the teleost phylogeny. At present, mature eels have never been caught in the wild and little is known about most aspects of reproduction in A. anguilla. The goal of this study was to identify genes that may be involved in sexual maturation in experimentally matured eels. For this, we used microarrays to compare the gene expression profiles of sexually mature to immature males.ResultsUsing a false discovery rate of 0.05, a total of 1,497 differentially expressed genes were identified. Of this set, 991 were expressed at higher levels in brains (forebrain and midbrain) of mature males while 506 were expressed at lower levels relative to brains of immature males. The set of up-regulated genes includes genes involved in neuroendocrine processes, cell-cell signaling, neurogenesis and development. Interestingly, while genes involved in immune system function were down-regulated in the brains of mature males, changes in the expression levels of several receptors and channels were observed suggesting that some rewiring is occurring in the brain at sexual maturity.ConclusionsThis study shows that the brains of eels undergo major changes at the molecular level at sexual maturity that may include re-organization at the cellular level. Here, we have defined a set of genes that help to understand the molecular mechanisms controlling reproduction in eels. Some of these genes have previously described functions while many others have roles that have yet to be characterized in a reproductive context. Since most of the genes examined here have orthologs in other vertebrates, the results of this study will contribute to the body of knowledge concerning reproduction in vertebrates as well as to an improved understanding of eel biology.

Project description:Gene expression analyses have been performed on brain tissue of sexually mature and immature males using microarrays. 60 eels were transferred to two independent temperature controlled recirculation water units connected to two 500 L cylindro-conical tanks (30 fish per tank) where the fish were acclimated to seawater (35 PSU salinity) over a 2 week period.Eel males in one of the seawater units were injected intramuscularly every week over a 140 day period with 2000 IU hCG/kg (human chorionic gonadotropin, Sigma–Aldrich Chemical) dissolved in 0.9% saline to induce sexual maturation. Eel males in the other recirculation unit were injected weekly over the same period with 0.9% NaCl (vehicle).At the end of the experiment, eels were anesthetized in a solution of 0.1mg/L tricaine methanesulfonate (MS-222, Sigma Aldrich) and blood samples collected into heparinized syringes. Tissues (brain, including the olfactory bulbs, telencephalon, diencephalon and mesencephalon, and gonads) were collected from sexually immature (n=12) and sexually mature males (n=12).RNA was extracted from brain tissue of a total of 24 (12 mature and 12 immature) males. For each individual, RNA was extracted separately for olfactory bulb, telencephalon and diencephalon. Because RNA concentrations of olfactory bulb, telencephalon and diencephalon were below the amount needed for microarray analysis, a separate experiment for each part of the brain was not possible. Therefore, we combined equal concentrations of olfactory bulb, telencephalon and diencephalon as a single brain sample for each individual.Microarray analysis was conducted using an European eel-specific array consisting of a total of 14,913 probes based on a large collection of high-throughput transcriptomic sequences (Pujolar et al. 2012). Probe sequences and further details on the microarray platform can be found on the GEO database under accession number GPL15124. Data was normalized using a quantile normalization procedure using R (http://www.r-project.org) A comparative analysis of gene expression was conducted between sexually mature and immature males. Sample labelling and hybridization were conducted following the details in Pujolar et al. (2012). Hybridized slides were scanned at 5 µm resolution using an Agilent DNA microarray scanner. Slides were scanned at two different sensitivity levels (XDR Hi 100% and XDR Lo 10%) and the two linked images generated were analysed together. Data were extracted and background subtracted using the standard procedure in Agilent Feature Extraction (FE) software v. 9.5.1. Hybridization success was evaluated using flag values, excluding those intensities not equal to 1.

Dataset Information

MKast is dispensable for normal development and sexual maturation of the male European honeybee.

Publications

mKast is dispensable for normal development and sexual maturation of the male European honeybee.

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