Allele specific expression in worker reproduction genes in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Entomology, Evolutionary Studies, Genetics, Zoology
- Keywords
- Social insect, Hymenoptera, Ecdysone, Genomic imprinting
- Copyright
- © 2015 Amarasinghe et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. Allele specific expression in worker reproduction genes in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e878v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.878v1
Abstract
Genomic imprinting is the differential expression of alleles, with the expression being dependent upon the sex of the parent from which it was inherited. Hymenopteran insects (ants, bees and wasps) are emerging as potential models for genomic imprinting and epigenetics. As a first step in establishing the possibility of genomic imprinting in the bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, we search for allele specific expression in twelve genes associated with worker reproduction. We found that the patrigene (allele from the father) is more expressed than the matrigene (allele from the mother) in Ecdysone 20 monooxygenase. This enzyme catalyses the reaction which turns the ecdysteroid ecdysone into 20-hydroxyecdysone, also an ecdysteroid. Both of these ecdysteroids are important for worker reproduction in the bumblebee.
Author Comment
This manuscript will be submitted to PeerJ.
Supplemental Information
Table S1. Details of primers sets used in PCR reactions
Table S2. Sequences of loci for which there was heterozygote workers
Snps are in red.