Quantitative Neuropeptidome Analysis Reveals Neuropeptides Are Correlated with Social Behavior Regulation of the Honeybee Workers

Abstract

Neuropeptides play vital roles in orchestrating neural communication and physiological modulation in organisms, acting as neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, and neurohormones. The highly evolved social structure of honeybees is a good system for understanding how neuropeptides regulate social behaviors; however, much knowledge on neuropeptidomic variation in the age-related division of labor remains unknown. An in-depth comparison of the brain neuropeptidomic dynamics over four time points of age-related polyethism was performed on two strains of honeybees, the Italian bee (Apis mellifera ligustica, ITb) and the high royal jelly producing bee (RJb, selected for increasing royal jelly production for almost four decades from the ITb in China). Among the 158 identified nonredundant neuropeptides, 77 were previously unreported, significantly expanding the coverage of the honeybee neuropeptidome. The fact that 14 identical neuropeptide precursors changed their expression levels during the division of labor in both the ITb and RJb indicates they are highly related to task transition of honeybee workers. These observations further suggest the two lines of bees employ a similar neuropeptidome modification to tune their respective physiology of age polyethism via regulating excretory system, circadian clock system, and so forth. Noticeably, the enhanced level of neuropeptides implicated in regulating water homeostasis, brood pheromone recognition, foraging capacity, and pollen collection in RJb signify the fact that neuropeptides are also involved in the regulation of RJ secretion. These findings gain novel understanding of honeybee neuropeptidome correlated with social behavior regulation, which is potentially important in neurobiology for honeybees and other insects.

Analysis of improved nutritional composition of bee pollen (Brassica campestris L.) after different fermentation treatments

“…The pollen peptides were extracted at 4°C by the mixture solvent (methanol/H 2 O/acetic acid, 90:9:1, V/V/ V). After centrifugation at 16 099.2 g for 10 min, the supernatant was collected and vacuum-dried for further LC-MS/MS analysis and referred to the previously described method (Han et al, 2015).…”

Toward an Upgraded Honey Bee (Apis mellifera L.) Genome Annotation Using Proteogenomics

“…While this is no doubt a more accurate annotation, proteomics studies which utilize it still suffer from high rates of missed identifications relative to other model organisms. 17 Some recent honey bee proteomics publications that used modern instrumentation 18,19,20 have achieved identifications approaching the numbers reported in Chan et al (2013), 10 but have not exceeded them.…”

Molecular insights into the enhanced performance of royal jelly secretion by a stock of honeybee (Apis mellifera ligustica) selected for increasing royal jelly production

“…The genetic selection of a high RJ-producing strain of bees (RJBs, A. m. ligustica ) from Italian bees (ITBs) has been conducted for nearly four decades in China since the 1980s. The RJBs can now produce 10 times greater amount of RJ than ITBs (Li et al 2007a, b;Li et al 2010;Feng et al 2015;Han et al 2015). Given the significantly elevated RJ outputs by RJBs, China is now the world's largest RJ producer and produces ∼ 3500 tons of RJ per year, which accounts for more than 90% of the world RJ market (Krell 1996;Cao et al 2016;Fratini et al 2016).…”

“…Although these markers are important for marker-based selection, knowledge on the molecular mechanism that drives the stronger performance of RJ production by RJBs is still required. To be noted, recent proteome researches have revealed that RJBs have reshaped the proteome setting of the HGs (Li et al 2010;Ji et al 2014), mandibular glands (MGs) (Huo et al 2016), hemolymph (Ararso et al 2018), and nervous system (Han et al 2015;Han et al 2017), to support their biological performance for the elevated RJ production, as compared to ITBs and other honeybee species and/or lines. In addition, proteome, phosphoproteome, and glycoproteome comparisons of RJ from RJBs and/or other honeybee species/lines have been carried out (Li et al 2007a, b;Chen and Li 2009;Fang et al 2010).…”