Abstract
The colony of eusocial bee Apis mellifera has a reproductive queen and sterile workers performing tasks such as brood care and foraging. Chemical communication plays a crucial role in the maintenance of sociability in bees with many compounds released by the exocrine glands. The Dufour’s gland is a non-paired gland associated with the sting apparatus with important functions in the communication between members of the colony, releasing volatile chemicals that influence workers roles and tasks. However, the protein content in this gland is not well studied. This study identified differentially expressed proteins in the Dufour’s glands of nurse and forager workers of A. mellifera through 2D-gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. A total of 131 spots showed different expression between nurse and forager bees, and 28 proteins were identified. The identified proteins were categorized into different functions groups including protein, carbohydrate, energy and lipid metabolisms, cytoskeleton-associated proteins, detoxification, homeostasis, cell communication, constitutive and allergen. This study provides new insights of the protein content in the Dufour’s gland contributing to a more complete understanding of the biological functions of this gland in honeybees.
Highlights
Bees play a key role in agriculture and global ecosystems, pollinating plants in native areas as well as high value agricultural crops [1, 2]
The mass spectrometry (MS)/MS analyses resulted in the identification of 28 spots with 24 different proteins (Fig 1A and 1B, Table 1)
All of the proteins identified that exhibited activity in protein metabolism showed different levels in the Dufour’s gland of nurse workers of A. mellifera such as heat shock proteins (HSPs) superfamily: heat shock protein (HSP60), heat shock protein (HSP70), stress-70 protein (HSP70), glucose-regulated protein (HSP70) and protein lethal (2) essential for life (HSP20)
Summary
Bees play a key role in agriculture and global ecosystems, pollinating plants in native areas as well as high value agricultural crops [1, 2]. They have different levels of social behavior, from solitary to eusocial, whose colony has a reproductive queen and thousands of sterile or semisterile workers, performing all other tasks for colony maintenance [3,4,5]. Until two-three weeks of age, adult workers perform tasks inside the nest, including brood care and are named nurses [5].
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