MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination

The cellular mechanisms employed by some organisms to produce contrasting morphological and reproductive phenotypes from the same genome remains one of the key unresolved issues in biology. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) use differential feeding and a haplodiploid sex determination system to generate th...

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Main Authors:	Ashby, Regan, Forêt, Sylvain, Searle, Iain, Maleszka, Ryszard
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Nature Publishing Group 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704047/

id	pubmed-4704047
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-47040472016-01-19 MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination Ashby, Regan Forêt, Sylvain Searle, Iain Maleszka, Ryszard Article The cellular mechanisms employed by some organisms to produce contrasting morphological and reproductive phenotypes from the same genome remains one of the key unresolved issues in biology. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) use differential feeding and a haplodiploid sex determination system to generate three distinct organismal outcomes from the same genome. Here we investigate the honeybee female and male caste-specific microRNA and transcriptomic molecular signatures during a critical time of larval development. Both previously undetected and novel miRNAs have been discovered, expanding the inventory of these genomic regulators in invertebrates. We show significant differences in the microRNA and transcriptional profiles of diploid females relative to haploid drone males as well as between reproductively distinct females (queens and workers). Queens and drones show gene enrichment in physio-metabolic pathways, whereas workers show enrichment in processes associated with neuronal development, cell signalling and caste biased structural differences. Interestingly, predicted miRNA targets are primarily associated with non-physio-metabolic genes, especially neuronal targets, suggesting a mechanistic disjunction from DNA methylation that regulates physio-metabolic processes. Accordingly, miRNA targets are under-represented in methylated genes. Our data show how a common set of genetic elements are differentially harnessed by an organism, which may provide the remarkable level of developmental flexibility required. Nature Publishing Group 2016-01-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4704047/ /pubmed/26739502 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep18794 Text en Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Ashby, Regan Forêt, Sylvain Searle, Iain Maleszka, Ryszard
spellingShingle	Ashby, Regan Forêt, Sylvain Searle, Iain Maleszka, Ryszard MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination
author_facet	Ashby, Regan Forêt, Sylvain Searle, Iain Maleszka, Ryszard
author_sort	Ashby, Regan
title	MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination
title_short	MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination
title_full	MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination
title_fullStr	MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination
title_full_unstemmed	MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination
title_sort	micrornas in honey bee caste determination
description	The cellular mechanisms employed by some organisms to produce contrasting morphological and reproductive phenotypes from the same genome remains one of the key unresolved issues in biology. Honeybees (Apis mellifera) use differential feeding and a haplodiploid sex determination system to generate three distinct organismal outcomes from the same genome. Here we investigate the honeybee female and male caste-specific microRNA and transcriptomic molecular signatures during a critical time of larval development. Both previously undetected and novel miRNAs have been discovered, expanding the inventory of these genomic regulators in invertebrates. We show significant differences in the microRNA and transcriptional profiles of diploid females relative to haploid drone males as well as between reproductively distinct females (queens and workers). Queens and drones show gene enrichment in physio-metabolic pathways, whereas workers show enrichment in processes associated with neuronal development, cell signalling and caste biased structural differences. Interestingly, predicted miRNA targets are primarily associated with non-physio-metabolic genes, especially neuronal targets, suggesting a mechanistic disjunction from DNA methylation that regulates physio-metabolic processes. Accordingly, miRNA targets are under-represented in methylated genes. Our data show how a common set of genetic elements are differentially harnessed by an organism, which may provide the remarkable level of developmental flexibility required.
publisher	Nature Publishing Group
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704047/
_version_	1613520899981443072

MicroRNAs in Honey Bee Caste Determination

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