Behavioral plasticity in honey bees is associated with differences in brain microRNA transcriptome
| Autor: | Shawn R. Thatcher, Gene E. Robinson, X. Gu, W. Zhang, Yehuda Ben-Shahar, Thomas C. Newman, Xiang Zhou, Pamela J. Green, Jacob K. Greenberg, Jing Xia, Seth A. Ament |
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| Rok vydání: | 2012 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Aging Hymenoptera Bioinformatics Article Transcriptome Behavioral Neuroscience Phylogenetics microRNA Neuroplasticity Genetics Animals Phylogeny Brain Chemistry Neuronal Plasticity biology Behavior Animal fungi Honey bee Bees biology.organism_classification Eusociality Biological Evolution MicroRNAs Aculeata Neurology Evolutionary biology Female |
| Zdroj: | Genes, brain, and behavior. 11(6) |
| ISSN: | 1601-183X |
| Popis: | Small, non-coding microRNAs (miRNAs) have been implicated in many biological processes, including the development of the nervous system. However, the roles of miRNAs in natural behavioral and neuronal plasticity are not well understood. To help address this we characterized the microRNA transcriptome in the adult worker honey bee head and investigated whether changes in microRNA expression levels in the brain are associated with division of labor among honey bees, a well-established model for socially regulated behavior. We determined that several miRNAs were downregulated in bees that specialize on brood care (nurses) relative to foragers. Additional experiments showed that this downregulation is dependent upon social context; it only occurred when nurse bees were in colonies that also contained foragers. Analyses of conservation patterns of brain-expressed miRNAs across Hymenoptera suggest a role for certain miRNAs in the evolution of the Aculeata, which includes all the eusocial hymenopteran species. Our results support the intriguing hypothesis that miRNAs are important regulators of social behavior at both developmental and evolutionary time scales. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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