Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
Insect Mol Biol. 2013 Oct;22(5):562-73. doi: 10.1111/imb.12043. Epub 2013 Jul 24.
Vitellogenin (Vg) is best known as a yolk protein precursor. Vg also functions to regulate behavioural maturation in adult honey bee workers, but the underlying molecular mechanisms by which it exerts this novel effect are largely unknown. We used abdominal vitellogenin (vg) knockdown with RNA interference (RNAi) and brain transcriptomic profiling to gain insights into how Vg influences honey bee behavioural maturation. We found that vg knockdown caused extensive gene expression changes in the bee brain, with much of this transcriptional response involving changes in central biological functions such as energy metabolism. vg knockdown targeted many of the same genes that show natural, maturation-related differences, but the direction of change for the genes in these two contrasts was not correlated. By contrast, vg knockdown targeted many of the same genes that are regulated by juvenile hormone (JH) and there was a significant correlation for the direction of change for the genes in these two contrasts. These results indicate that the tight coregulatory relationship that exists between JH and Vg in the regulation of honey bee behavioural maturation is manifest at the genomic level and suggest that these two physiological factors act through common pathways to regulate brain gene expression and behaviour.
卵黄蛋白原（Vg）是众所周知的卵黄蛋白前体。Vg 还能调节成年蜜蜂工蜂的行为成熟，但它发挥这种新作用的潜在分子机制在很大程度上尚不清楚。我们使用 RNA 干扰（RNAi）对腹部卵黄蛋白原（vg）进行敲低，并进行大脑转录组谱分析，以深入了解 Vg 如何影响蜜蜂的行为成熟。我们发现，vg 敲低导致蜜蜂大脑中广泛的基因表达变化，其中许多转录反应涉及到中央生物功能的变化，如能量代谢。vg 敲低针对的是许多表现出自然成熟相关差异的相同基因，但这两个对比中基因变化的方向没有相关性。相比之下，vg 敲低针对的是许多受保幼激素（JH）调节的相同基因，这两个对比中基因变化的方向存在显著相关性。这些结果表明，JH 和 Vg 在调节蜜蜂行为成熟方面的紧密核心调控关系在基因组水平上表现出来，并表明这两个生理因素通过共同途径调节大脑基因表达和行为。
