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Histone deacetylase inhibitor activity in royal jelly might facilitate caste switching in bees.

ABSTRACT: Worker and queen bees are genetically indistinguishable. However, queen bees are fertile, larger and have a longer lifespan than their female worker counterparts. Differential feeding of larvae with royal jelly controls this caste switching. There is emerging evidence that the queen-bee phenotype is driven by epigenetic mechanisms. In this study, we show that royal jelly--the secretion produced by the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of worker bees--has histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) activity. A fatty acid, (E)-10-hydroxy-2-decenoic acid (10HDA), which accounts for up to 5% of royal jelly, harbours this HDACi activity. Furthermore, 10HDA can reactivate the expression of epigenetically silenced genes in mammalian cells. Thus, the epigenetic regulation of queen-bee development is probably driven, in part, by HDACi activity in royal jelly.

SUBMITTER: Spannhoff A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3059907 | biostudies-other | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Histone deacetylase inhibitor activity in royal jelly might facilitate caste switching in bees.

Spannhoff Astrid A Kim Yong Kee YK Raynal Noel J-M NJ Gharibyan Vazganush V Su Ming-Bo MB Zhou Yue-Yang YY Li Jia J Castellano Sabrina S Sbardella Gianluca G Issa Jean-Pierre J JP Bedford Mark T MT

EMBO reports 20110218 3

Worker and queen bees are genetically indistinguishable. However, queen bees are fertile, larger and have a longer lifespan than their female worker counterparts. Differential feeding of larvae with royal jelly controls this caste switching. There is emerging evidence that the queen-bee phenotype is driven by epigenetic mechanisms. In this study, we show that royal jelly--the secretion produced by the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of worker bees--has histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) ...[more]

PMID: 21331099

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Project description:BackgroundHoney bees are not only essential for pollination services, but are also economically important as a source of hive products (e.g., honey, royal jelly, pollen, wax, and propolis) that are used as foods, cosmetics, and alternative medicines. Royal jelly is a popular honey bee product with multiple potential medicinal properties. To boost royal jelly production, a long-term genetic selection program of Italian honey bees (ITBs) in China has been performed, resulting in honey bee stocks (here referred to as RJBs) that produce an order of magnitude more royal jelly than ITBs. Although multiple studies have investigated the molecular basis of increased royal jelly yields, one factor that has not been considered is the role of honey bee-associated gut microbes.ResultsBased on the behavioral, morphological, physiological, and neurological differences between RJBs and ITBs, we predicted that the gut microbiome composition of RJBs bees would differ from ITBs. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the bacterial composition of RJB and ITB workers from an urban location and RJBs from a rural location in China. Based on 16S rRNA gene profiling, we did not find any evidence that RJBs possess a unique bacterial gut community when compared to ITBs. However, we observed differences between honey bees from the urban versus rural sites.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the environmental factors rather than stock differences are more important in shaping the bacterial composition in honey bee guts. Further studies are needed to investigate if the observed differences in relative abundance of taxa between the urban and rural bees correspond to distinct functional capabilities that impact honey bee health. Because the lifestyle, diet, and other environmental variables are different in rural and urban areas, controlled studies are needed to determine which of these factors are responsible for the observed differences in gut bacterial composition between urban and rural honeybees.

Project description:HC-toxin, a cyclic peptide made by the filamentous fungus Cochliobolus carbonum, is an inhibitor of histone deacetylase (HDAC) from many organisms. It was shown earlier that the HDAC activity in crude extracts of C. carbonum is relatively insensitive to HC-toxin as well as to the chemically unrelated HDAC inhibitors trichostatin and D85, whereas the HDAC activity of Aspergillus nidulans is sensitive (G. Brosch et al., Biochemistry 40:12855-12863, 2001). Here we report that HC-toxin-resistant HDAC activity was present in other, but not all, plant-pathogenic Cochliobolus species but not in any of the saprophytic species tested. The HDAC activities of the fungi Alternaria brassicicola and Diheterospora chlamydosporia, which also make HDAC inhibitors, were resistant. The HDAC activities of all C. carbonum isolates tested, except one non-toxin-producing isolate, were resistant. In a cross between a sensitive isolate and a resistant isolate, resistance genetically cosegregated with HC-toxin production. When fractionated by anion-exchange chromatography, extracts of resistant and sensitive isolates and species had two peaks of HDAC activity, one that was fully HC-toxin resistant and a second that was larger and sensitive. The first peak was consistently smaller in extracts of sensitive fungi than in resistant fungi, but the difference appeared to be insufficiently large to explain the differential sensitivities of the crude extracts. Differences in mRNA expression levels of the four known HDAC genes of C. carbonum did not account for the observed differences in HDAC activity profiles. When mixed together, resistant extracts protected extracts of sensitive C. carbonum but did not protect other sensitive Cochlibolus species or Neurospora crassa. Production of this extrinsic protection factor was dependent on TOXE, the transcription factor that regulates the HC-toxin biosynthetic genes. The results suggest that C. carbonum has multiple mechanisms of self-protection against HC-toxin.

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Histone deacetylase inhibitor activity in royal jelly might facilitate caste switching in bees.

Publications

Histone deacetylase inhibitor activity in royal jelly might facilitate caste switching in bees.

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