DNA methylation changes elicited by social stimuli in the brains of worker honey bees
- PMID: 22098706
- DOI: 10.1111/j.1601-183X.2011.00751.x
DNA methylation changes elicited by social stimuli in the brains of worker honey bees
Abstract
Social environments are notoriously multifactorial, yet studies in rodents have suggested that single variables such as maternal care can in fact be disentangled and correlated with specific DNA methylation changes. This study assesses whether non-detrimental social environmental variation in a highly plastic social insect is correlated with epigenomic modifications at the DNA methylation level. Honey bee workers perform tasks such as nursing and foraging in response to the social environment in the hive, in an age-linked but not age-dependent manner. In this study, the methylation levels of 83 cytosine-phosphate-guanosine dinucleotides over eight genomic regions were compared between the brains of age-matched bees performing nursing or foraging tasks. The results reveal more changes correlated with task than with chronological age, and also hive-associated methylation at some sites. One methylation site from a gene encoding Protein Kinase C binding protein 1 was consistently more methylated in foragers than nurses, which is suggested to lead to production of task-specific protein isoforms via alternative splicing. This study illustrates the ability of the neural epigenome to dynamically respond to complex social stimuli.
© 2011 The Authors. Genes, Brain and Behavior © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society.
Similar articles
-
Nutritional status influences socially regulated foraging ontogeny in honey bees.J Exp Biol. 2005 Dec;208(Pt 24):4641-9. doi: 10.1242/jeb.01956. J Exp Biol. 2005. PMID: 16326945
-
Social inhibition and the regulation of temporal polyethism in honey bees.J Theor Biol. 2001 Dec 7;213(3):461-79. doi: 10.1006/jtbi.2001.2427. J Theor Biol. 2001. PMID: 11735292
-
Understanding the relationship between brain gene expression and social behavior: lessons from the honey bee.Annu Rev Genet. 2012;46:591-615. doi: 10.1146/annurev-genet-110711-155517. Epub 2012 Sep 17. Annu Rev Genet. 2012. PMID: 22994354 Review.
-
Experience-dependent plasticity in the mushroom bodies of the solitary bee Osmia lignaria (Megachilidae).Dev Neurobiol. 2008 Jan;68(1):73-82. doi: 10.1002/dneu.20574. Dev Neurobiol. 2008. PMID: 17918235
-
Muscle biochemistry and the ontogeny of flight capacity during behavioral development in the honey bee, Apis mellifera.J Exp Biol. 2005 Nov;208(Pt 22):4193-8. doi: 10.1242/jeb.01862. J Exp Biol. 2005. PMID: 16272241 Review.
Cited by
-
Patterns of DNA methylation in development, division of labor and hybridization in an ant with genetic caste determination.PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e42433. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042433. Epub 2012 Aug 3. PLoS One. 2012. PMID: 22879983 Free PMC article.
-
Dnmt1 has an essential function despite the absence of CpG DNA methylation in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum.Sci Rep. 2018 Nov 7;8(1):16462. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-34701-3. Sci Rep. 2018. PMID: 30405203 Free PMC article.
-
Social visual engagement in infants and toddlers with autism: early developmental transitions and a model of pathogenesis.Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2015 Mar;50:189-203. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.10.006. Epub 2014 Oct 16. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2015. PMID: 25445180 Free PMC article. Review.
-
Transcriptional expression of m6A and m5C RNA methyltransferase genes in the brain and fat body of honey bee adult workers.Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 Aug 29;10:921503. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.921503. eCollection 2022. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022. PMID: 36105348 Free PMC article.
-
Exploring DNA Methylation Diversity in the Honey Bee Brain by Ultra-Deep Amplicon Sequencing.Epigenomes. 2020 Jun 25;4(2):10. doi: 10.3390/epigenomes4020010. Epigenomes. 2020. PMID: 34968244 Free PMC article.
Publication types
MeSH terms
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Research Materials
