Honeybee (Apis mellifera) Maternal Effect Causes Alternation of DNA Methylation Regulating Queen Development

Autor: Xu Jiang He, Hao Wei, Wu Jun Jiang, Yi Bo Liu, Xiao Bo Wu, Zhijiang Zeng
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Sociobiology, Vol 68, Iss 1 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 0361-6525
2447-8067
DOI: 10.13102/sociobiology.v68i1.5935
Popis: Queen-worker caste dimorphism is a typical trait for honeybees (Apis mellifera). We previously showed a maternal effect on caste differentiation and queen development, where queens emerged from queen-cell eggs (QE) had higher quality than queens developed from worker cell eggs (WE). In this study, newly-emerged queens were reared from QE, WE, and 2-day worker larvae (2L). The thorax size and DNA methylation levels of queens were measured. We found that queens emerging from QE had significantly larger thorax length and width than WE and 2L. Epigenetic analysis showed that QE/2L comparison had the most different methylated genes (DMGs, 612) followed by WE/2L (473), and QE/WE (371). Interestingly, a great number of DMGs (42) were in genes belonging to mTOR, MAPK, Wnt, Notch, Hedgehog, FoxO, and Hippo signaling pathways that are involved in regulating caste differentiation, reproduction and longevity. This study proved that honeybee maternal effect causes epigenetic alteration regulating caste differentiation and queen development.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals