Suchergebnisse

Sex determination and caste differentiation are two crucial processes for morphology building in honeybees. It is unclear whether there is an interaction between these two processes. Here, we investigated the expression of fem and Amdsx genes between female castes of honeybees. We found that the expression of fem and Amdsx is significantly higher in queens than in workers, and this expression was positively regulated by juvenile hormone (JH). Our results suggest that sex-determining genes fem and Amdsx are also involved in honeybee caste differentiation.

Royal jelly has many important biological functions, however the molecular mechanism of royal jelly secretion in hypopharyngeal gland (HG) is still not well understood. In our previously study, six genes (SV2C, eIF-4E, PDK1, IMP, cell growth-regulating nucleolar protein and TGF-βR1) have been shown to might be associated with royal jelly secretion. In this study, the relative expression levels of these genes were examined in the hypopharyngeal gland of workers at different developmental stages (nurse, forager and reversed nurse stages). The results indicated that the relative expression levels of SV2C, eIF-4E, IMP, cell growth-regulating nucleolar protein and TGF-βR1 were reversed at reversed nurse stage compared to forager stage. We concluded that these genes are possibly candidates related to hypopharyngeal gland development or royal jelly secretion.