College of Bee Science and Biomedicine, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
State Key Laboratory of Resource Insects, Biological Science Research Center, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Oct 6;25(19):10746. doi: 10.3390/ijms251910746.
Stingers, evolved from ovipositors, are an important defense organ for the , , and species. However, the molecular mechanism of stinger development remains unclear. Here, we show that the earliest time point for the appearance of stingers in is at the 1-day-old worker pupal stage based on morphological observations and anatomy from the pre-pupal to adult stages. To discover the genes related to stinger development, we first comprehensively compared the stinger transcriptome at different stages and screened 1282, 186, and 166 highly expressed genes in the stingers of 1- and 5-day-old worker pupae and newly emerged worker bees (NEBs), respectively, then identified 25 DEGs involved in the early stage of stinger development. We found that was a key candidate gene in the early development of stingers by combining analyses of the protein-protein interaction network and spatiotemporal expression patterns. An RNAi experiment showed that about 20% of individuals exhibited tip bending in the piercing parts of their stingers in the -dsRNA-treated group, with the morphology presenting as side-side or front-back tip bending. This indicates that plays a vital role in the early development of stingers. Together, our study provides insight into the molecular mechanism of Hymenoptera stinger development and an inspiration for the molecular breeding of gentle honeybee species with stinger abnormalities.
蛰针由产卵器进化而来，是 、 和 物种的重要防御器官。然而，蛰针发育的分子机制尚不清楚。在这里，我们通过形态观察和预蛹到成虫阶段的解剖，表明 在 1 日龄工蛹期最早出现蛰针。为了发现与蛰针发育相关的基因，我们首先全面比较了不同阶段的蛰针转录组，并分别筛选了 1-日龄和 5-日龄工蛹及新出房工蜂（NEB）蛰针中 1282、186 和 166 个高度表达的基因，然后鉴定了 25 个参与蛰针早期发育的差异表达基因。我们通过蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用网络和时空表达模式的综合分析发现 是 蛰针早期发育的关键候选基因。RNAi 实验表明，在 -dsRNA 处理组中，约 20%的个体的蛰针穿刺部位出现尖端弯曲，形态表现为侧面或前后尖端弯曲。这表明 在 蛰针的早期发育中发挥了重要作用。总之，我们的研究为膜翅目蛰针发育的分子机制提供了深入了解，并为具有蛰针异常的温和蜜蜂品种的分子育种提供了启示。
