Genetic diversity among queen bee, worker bees and larvae in terms of retrotransposon movements

Abstract

Honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) is a model organism, contributing significant effect on global ecology by pollination and examining due to its social behaviour. In this study, barley-specific Sukkula and Nikita retrotransposons were analysed using IRAP (Inter-Retrotransposon Amplification Polymorphism) marker technique, and the relationships between retrotransposon movements and development were also investigated in three different colonies of the Caucasian honey bee (A. mellifera caucasica). Furthermore, transposon sequences belonging to A. mellifera, Bombus terrestris, Triticum turgidum L. and Hordeum vulgare L. were also examined to figure out evolutionary relationships. For this purpose, a queen bee, five worker bees, and five larvae from each colony were studied. Both retrotransposons were found in all samples in three colonies with different polymorphism ratios (0–100% for Nikita and 0–67% for Sukkula). We also determined polymorphisms in queen–worker (0–83% for Nikita, 0–63% for Sukkula), queen–larvae (0–83% for Nikita, 0–43% for Sukkula) and worker–larvae comparisons (0–100% for Nikita, 0–63% for Sukkula) in colonies. Moreover, close relationships among transposons found in plant and insect genomes as a result of in silico evaluations to verify experimental results. This work could be one of the first studies to analyse plant-specific retrotransposons’ movements in honey bee genome. Results are expected to understand evolutionary relationships in terms of horizontal transfer of transposons among kingdoms.