Abstract
Adult honeybee queens and workers drastically differ in ovary state and ovary size. However, this reproductive bias is only partially understood from the view of a single RNA type. In this study, we predicted 10,271 mRNAs, 7235 lncRNAs, 11,794 circRNAs, and 164 miRNAs in the ovary of honeybee workers through bioinformatics. Combining RNA sequencing data of honeybee virgin queens, 4385 mRNAs, 2390 lncRNAs, 5602 circRNAs, and 75 miRNAs were differentially expressed in workers compared with virgins. Compared with egg-laying queens, 6536 mRNAs, 3130 lncRNAs, 5751 circRNAs, and 81 miRNAs were differentially expressed in workers. Further, functional annotation revealed that neural regulation was closely related to ovary state. Moreover, the potential interactions among circRNAs, miRNAs, lncRNAs, and mRNAs revealed that vitellogenin, ecdysone-induced protein 74, ame_circ_0001176, and ame_circ_0001243 might play critical roles in the competing endogenous RNA network. These findings suggest that the integrative RNA networks have potential effects in ovarian phenotype differences in honeybees.
Highlights
Honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica ) female ontogenies are governed by identical genomes (Macedo et al 2016)
We examined the miRNA, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), circRNA, and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) expression profiles in ovaries of worker bees using high-throughput sequencing method
Previous studies exploring the gene regulatory mechanism of ovarian phenotype differences in honeybees found that mRNAs and miRNAs played critical roles (Lago et al 2016; Macedo et al 2016)
Summary
Honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica ) female ontogenies are governed by identical genomes (Macedo et al 2016). Differences in the quality of the food offered to young larvae trigger specific developmental pathways, producing highly specialized female phenotypes: queens and workers (Macedo et al 2016). Adult honeybee queens and workers drastically differ in ovary size and ovarian state. Honeybee queens are equipped with huge ovaries (150–200 ovarioles). The queen’s ovaries become activated and even bigger.
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