Uncovering the novel characteristics of Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, by whole genome sequencing

Abstract

BackgroundThe honey bee is an important model system for increasing understanding of molecular and neural mechanisms underlying social behaviors relevant to the agricultural industry and basic science. The western honey bee, Apis mellifera, has served as a model species, and its genome sequence has been published. In contrast, the genome of the Asian honey bee, Apis cerana, has not yet been sequenced. A. cerana has been raised in Asian countries for thousands of years and has brought considerable economic benefits to the apicultural industry. A cerana has divergent biological traits compared to A. mellifera and it has played a key role in maintaining biodiversity in eastern and southern Asia. Here we report the first whole genome sequence of A. cerana.ResultsUsing de novo assembly methods, we produced a 238 Mbp draft of the A. cerana genome and generated 10,651 genes. A.cerana-specific genes were analyzed to better understand the novel characteristics of this honey bee species. Seventy-two percent of the A. cerana-specific genes had more than one GO term, and 1,696 enzymes were categorized into 125 pathways. Genes involved in chemoreception and immunity were carefully identified and compared to those from other sequenced insect models. These included 10 gustatory receptors, 119 odorant receptors, 10 ionotropic receptors, and 160 immune-related genes.ConclusionsThis first report of the whole genome sequence of A. cerana provides resources for comparative sociogenomics, especially in the field of social insect communication. These important tools will contribute to a better understanding of the complex behaviors and natural biology of the Asian honey bee and to anticipate its future evolutionary trajectory.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-16-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Putting Infection Dynamics at the Heart of Chagas Disease

“…Emerging technologies could soon increase sensitivity further and generate new insights into the parasite’s biology in vivo. For example, aptamers [35] or spliced leader trapping [36] can potentially enrich samples for rare parasites or parasite-derived mRNAs, while ribosomal profiling [37], fluorescence dilution [38] and isotope labelling [39] approaches could help differentiate between dormant and active parasites. In the following sections we review current understanding of T. cruzi infection dynamics and explore why the utility of the parasite detection techniques described above depends on appropriate tissue sampling strategies.…”

Effects of Sublethal Concentrations of Chlorpyrifos on Olfactory Learning and Memory Performances in Two Bee Species, Apis mellifera and Apis cerana

“…In our cage studies, A. cerana is more sensitive to oral acute toxicities of chlorpyrifos than A. mellifera. However, there are few reports of collapse due to applications of insecticides in A. cerana colonies (Park et al, 2015). This finding may be correlated with differential physiological and behavioral characteristics between the two honey bee species.…”

Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a tool for mining, studying and engineering fungal polyketide synthases

“…Recently, Bok et al constructed an unbiased shuttle BAC library of Aspergillus terreus ATCC2054 with the vector containing both the E. coli replicon and Aspergillus autonomously replication sequence (AMA1). The average insert size was about 100 kb, which can cover all genes and regulatory elements of the biosynthetic pathway and be used successfully in the heterologous expression of secondary metabolites (Bok et al, 2015). However, the construction of high quality unbiased BAC library is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so alternative solutions have been explored using S. cerevisiae .…”