All you ever wanted to know about the honey bee genome but were afraid to ask

[Jon]

This might appeal to the two geneticists on the forum but the rest of us will have difficulty keeping up.
I dare say you have browsed it already as it was published in 2006.
What I can understand of it is fascinating stuff.


Here we report the genome sequence of the honeybee Apis mellifera, a key model for social behaviour and essential to global ecology through pollination. Compared with other sequenced insect genomes, the A. mellifera genome has high A+T and CpG contents, lacks major transposon families, evolves more slowly, and is more similar to vertebrates for circadian rhythm, RNA interference and DNA methylation genes, among others. Furthermore, A. mellifera has fewer genes for innate immunity, detoxification enzymes, cuticle-forming proteins and gustatory receptors, more genes for odorant receptors, and novel genes for nectar and pollen utilization, consistent with its ecology and social organization. Compared to Drosophila, genes in early developmental pathways differ in Apis, whereas similarities exist for functions that differ markedly, such as sex determination, brain function and behaviour. Population genetics suggests a novel African origin for the species A. mellifera and insights into whether Africanized bees spread throughout the New World via hybridization or displacement.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7114/full/nature05260.html

Waiting with baited breath for a layman's summary from both Gavin and Jimbo!

[Jimbo]

Hi Jon,

I will leave the layman's explaination to Gavin. I am more a desk jockey than a lab rat these days. I did browse it when it was first published and found it facinating. There are a few PhD projects in there for some people as having the Bee Genome Sequence is just the start.
In my place of work Genomics is starting to be a bit dated Proteomics is the new thing. (Gavin, with 3 D modelling of results!)

Jimbo

[Stromnessbees]

I am not pretending I read the whole thing, I just scrolled though it and found this interesting graphic:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7114/images/nature05260-f10.2.jpg
Shows that our dark bee is more closely related to African bees than to her neighbours in Europe!

Doris

[gavin]

Yeah, there was a paper a few years ago called something like 'Thrice out of Africa' discussing molecular evidence for the two-pronged move north out of Africa, and the more recent invasion of the Americas by one special kind of African bee. So those Ghanaians could teach you a thing or two about bees Doris! And we have an obvious reason for hybrid bees (Amm x continental races) being unhappy bees, as they are really rather far apart genetically.

One lesson I quickly learned was that this kind of science will quickly be distorted by those wishing to make a point. In that case 'fewer genes for detoxification enzymes' translated to 'must be particularly susceptible to pesticides', but I don't think that is true.

Another lesson - these days you can accumulate genome sequence data rather quickly, but it takes years to really get to grips with what it all means. I guess that is what you are doing Jimbo with your 3D modelling proteomics?

G

PS I know that football is a minority interest in beekeeping circles, but look out for Ghanaian flags amongst the sea of tangerine at Hampden a week on Saturday. One of our stars hails from that part of Africa.

[Stromnessbees]

Hi Gavin


Yeah, there was a paper a few years ago called something like 'Thrice out of Africa' discussing molecular evidence for the two-pronged move north out of Africa, and the more recent invasion of the Americas by one special kind of African bee.

Any chance of a link to that paper?
I have access to scientific journals, so if you can remember where you saw it I could look it up.

Cheers, Doris

[gavin]

Hi Doris

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5799/642

Can't post the PDF on here though as there are copyright considerations.

G.

[Stromnessbees]

Here's the link for those interested:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1601-183X.2010.00622.x/abstract

Doris

[prakel]

An old thread but perhaps a good place to mention the new research coming from Uppsala University:

Evolutionary history of honeybees revealed by genomics (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140824152245.htm)


Another unexpected result was that honeybees seem to be derived from an ancient lineage of cavity-nesting bees that arrived from Asia around 300,000 years ago and rapidly spread across Europe and Africa. This stands in contrast to previous research that suggests that honeybees originate from Africa.