Genomic and transcriptional analysis of protein heterogeneity of the honeybee venom allergen Api m 6

Abstract

Several components of honeybee venom are known to cause allergenic responses in humans and other vertebrates. One such component, the minor allergen Api m 6, has been known to show amino acid variation but the genetic mechanism for this variation is unknown. Here we show that Api m 6 is derived from a single locus, and that substantial protein-level variation has a simple genome-level cause, without the need to invoke multiple loci or alternatively spliced exons. Api m 6 sits near a misassembled section of the honeybee genome sequence, and we propose that a substantial number of indels at and near Api m 6 might be the root cause of this misassembly. We suggest that genes such as Api m 6 with coding-region or untranslated region indels might have had a strong effect on the assembly of this draft of the honeybee genome.

Genome‐wide analysis of genes related to ovary activation in worker honey bees

“…This homologue to sPLA 2 has been previously cloned (Kuchler et al ., 1989) and its enzyme product is a known bee venom allergen (Habermann, 1972). Other genes from the abdomen set encode the minor allergen Api m 6 (Peiren et al ., 2006) (GB19783), the yolk precursor protein vitellogenin (Piulachs et al ., 2003) (GB13999), the queen venom peptide secapin (GB19804) (Lui & Vernon, 1984) and a hypothetical gene (GB17376) similar ( E ‐value: 6e‐42) to Drosophila CG10096.…”

Manual superscaffolding of honey bee (Apis mellifera) chromosomes 12–16: implications for the draft genome assembly version 4, gene annotation, and chromosome structure

“…We examined the mate pair evidence for several overlapping scaffolds in detail and it was compatible with a single sequence rather than a duplicated region. Peiren et al . (2006) noted two such examples of single genes on chromosome 16 that are duplicated at the ends of scaffolds, apparently because these loci encoding a venom allergen and an immune component are known polymorphic loci and the two haplotypes have considerable length differences.…”

“…Four and five genes were duplicated on overlapping ends of scaffolds on chromosomes 15 and 16, respectively, so these are redundant gene models made evident by the superscaffolding. These include the two such instances identified by Peiren et al . (2006) on chromosome 16.…”

“…These extreme differences usually result from insertions and deletions (indels) rather than simple sequence differences, commonly microsatellite alleles of very different lengths. In some cases these assembly difficulties might indicate the presence of biologically important polymorphisms in genes, as described for two loci on chromosome 16 (Peiren et al ., 2006).…”

Structural biology of allergens from stinging and biting insects

“…IgE from four of five allergic beekeepers bound to the carbohydratefree recombinant protein, named icarapin. The small minor protein allergen Api m 6 was investigated from a genomic point of view and it was found that the various forms all originated from a single locus that contained numerous indels, and that the amino acid variation was probably due to splice variants [17].…”