School of Life Sciences, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an 343009, China.
Genes (Basel). 2023 May 22;14(5):1117. doi: 10.3390/genes14051117.
Oil-tea () is a woody oil crop whose nectar includes galactose derivatives that are toxic to honey bees. Interestingly, some mining bees of the genus can entirely live on the nectar (and pollen) of oil-tea and are able to metabolize these galactose derivatives. We present the first next-generation genomes for five and one species that are, respectively, specialized and non-specialized oil-tea pollinators and, combining these with the published genomes of six other species which did not visit oil-tea, we performed molecular evolution analyses on the genes involved in the metabolizing of galactose derivatives. The six genes (, , , , , and ) involved in galactose derivatives metabolism were identified in the five oil-tea specialized species, but only five (with the exception of ) were discovered in the other species. Molecular evolution analyses revealed that , , and in oil-tea specialized species appeared under positive selection. RNASeq analyses showed that , , and were significantly up-regulated in the specialized pollinator compared to the non-specialized pollinator . Our study demonstrated that the genes , , and have played an important role in the evolutionary adaptation of the oil-tea specialized species.
油茶是一种木本油料作物，其花蜜中含有对蜜蜂有毒的半乳糖衍生物。有趣的是，某些 属的矿工蜂完全以油茶的花蜜（和花粉）为食，并能够代谢这些半乳糖衍生物。我们提供了五个 和一个 物种的第一个下一代基因组，它们分别是专门和非专门的油茶传粉者，结合六个未访问油茶的其他 物种的已发表基因组，我们对参与半乳糖衍生物代谢的基因进行了分子进化分析。在五个油茶专门物种中鉴定出了参与半乳糖衍生物代谢的六个基因（、、、、、和），但在其他六个 物种中仅发现了五个（除了 之外）。分子进化分析表明，油茶专门物种中的 、和 在进化上受到了正选择。RNASeq 分析表明，与非专门传粉者相比，专门传粉者 中的 、和 显著上调。我们的研究表明，基因 、和 在油茶专门物种的进化适应中发挥了重要作用。
