Project description:We have identified a honeybee (Apis mellifera) odorant receptor (Or) for the queen substance 9-oxo-2-decenoic acid (9-ODA) from four candidate sex pheromone odorant receptors from the honeybee genome based on their biased expression in drone antennae. Keywords: Tissue Comparison
Project description:Apis mellifera intermissa (Buttel-Reepen, 1906) is the native honeybee subspecies of Algeria. A.m.intermissa occurs in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, between the Atlas and the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts (Ruttner, 1988), in an area of more than 2500 km long. Intermissa indicates the position through this bee races between tropical Africa and European breeds (Peyvel, 1994). The settlement area of the Tellian extends from Tunisia to Morocco. Ruttner et al (1978) describes the pure Tellian. It is a black hair of his coat poverty brings out the black color. It is a small size, there are some times light illumination on the tergites. This bee is very aggressive, nervous, sick to take part, as swarms huge fall and even produced many brood and can build up to one hundred queen cells (Le Conte, 2002). A.m.intermissa is prone to swarming, shows an aggressive behaviour and an abundant use of propolis (Ruttner 1988). This study is part of the project funded by the USAID Grant No. TA-MOU-08-M29-075.
Project description:Apis mellifera syriaca is the native honeybee subspecies of Jordan and much of the Middle East. It expresses behavioral adaptations to a regional climate with very high temperatures, nectar dearth in summer, attacks of the Oriental wasp Vespa orientalis and in most cases it is resistant to varroa mites. The Thorax control sample of A. m. syriaca in this experiment was originally collected and stored since 2001 from Wadi Ben Hammad a remote valley in the southern region of Jordan. Using morphometric and Mitochondrial DNA markers it was proved that bees from this area had show higher similarity than other samples collected from the Middle East as represented by reference samples collected in 1952 by Brother Adam. The samples L1-L5 are collected from the National Center for Agricultural Research and Extension breading apiary which was originally established for the conservation of Apis mellifera syriaca. Goal was to use the genetic information in the breeding for varroa resistant bees and to determine the successfulness of this conservation program. Project funded by USAID-MERC grant number: TA-MOU-09-M29-075.
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. 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 , equal amounts of total RNAs from each of the three sampling days were analyzed on the LC Science miRNA-array to observe the expression variation of miRNAs between worker jelly and royal jelly along with the development time points (4th-day, 5th-day and 6th-day).
Project description:In Apis mellifera, the female eggs can develop into workers or queen depending on the diet offered during early development. The outputs of the developed honeybee females are two morphs with particular morphological traits and related physiology. The differential feeding regime experienced by the queen and the worker larvae of the honeybee Apis mellifera shapes a complex endocrine response cascade that ultimately sets up differences in brain morphologies. Herein we report on aspects of brain morphogenesis during larval development and the brain gene expression signature of fourth instar larvae (L4) of both castes, a developmental stage characterized by the greatest differences in juvenile hormone (JH) titers between castes Using results from the hybridization of whole genome-based oligonucleotide arrays with RNA samples from brain of fourth instar larvae honeybees of both castes we present a list of differentially expressed genes.
Project description:Complex organisms are composed of organs and tissues which evolved to their present state as they function together to improve an organism's overall reproductive fitness. Studies of individual organs help us understand their basic functions but this reductionist approach misses the larger context of the whole organism. This problem can be circumvented if all the organs in an organism were comprehensively studied by the same methodology and analyzed together. Using honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) as a model system,we report here the first whole proteome of a complex organism,measuring 29 different tissue types among the three honey bee castes: queen,drone,and worker. The data reveal that,e.g.,workers have a heightened capacity to deal with environmental toxins and queens have a far more robust immune system than their nestmates. Most intriguingly,our analysis reveals the path by which organs of complex organisms probably evolved.Raw data were processed by MaxQuant (v1.2.0.13) using default parameters, plus lysine and N-terminal dimethylation for three isotopologues for relative quantitation. Data were searched against the Apis Official Gene Set version 2 with common contaminants, containing a total of 22037 sequences. Normalized intensity ratios were used for relative quantitation.
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).
Project description:In Apis mellifera, the female eggs can develop into workers or queen depending on the diet offered during early development. The outputs of the developed honeybee females are two morphs with particular morphological traits and related physiology. The differential feeding regime experienced by the queen and the worker larvae of the honeybee Apis mellifera shapes a complex endocrine response cascade that ultimately sets up differences in brain morphologies. Herein we report on aspects of brain morphogenesis during larval development and the brain gene expression signature of fourth instar larvae (L4) of both castes, a developmental stage characterized by the greatest differences in juvenile hormone (JH) titers between castes Using results from the hybridization of whole genome-based oligonucleotide arrays with RNA samples from brain of fourth instar larvae honeybees of both castes we present a list of differentially expressed genes. Analysis used one dye-swap combination to compare workers and queens brain development at fourth instar larvae when juvenile hormone titers is higher in queens.