Division of labor in honey bees is associated with transcriptional regulatory plasticity in the brain
Posted on 2019-06-12 - 04:47 authored by Adam Hamilton
Studies in evolutionary and developmental biology show that
relationships between transcription factors (TFs) and their target genes
can be altered to result in novel regulatory relationships that
generate phenotypic plasticity. We hypothesized that context-dependent
shifts in the nervous system associated with behavior may also be linked
to changes in TF-target relationships over physiological timescales. We
tested this hypothesis using honey bee (Apis mellifera) division of
labor as a model system by performing bioinformatic analyses of
previously published brain transcriptomic profiles together with new
RNAi and behavioral experiments. The bioinformatic analyses identified
five TFs that exhibited strong signatures of regulatory plasticity as a
function of division of labor. RNAi targeting one of these TFs (broad
complex) and a related TF that did not exhibit plasticity (fushi-tarazu
transcription factor 1) was administered in conjunction with automated
analyses of foraging behavior in the field, laboratory assays of
aggression and brood care behavior, and endocrine treatments. Results
showed that changes in regulatory relationships of these TFs were
associated with behavioral state, social context and endocrine state.
These findings provide the first empirical evidence that TF-target
relationships in the brain are altered in conjunction with behavior and
social context. They also suggest that one mechanism for this plasticity
involves pleiotropic TFs high in regulatory hierarchies producing
behavior-specific transcriptional responses by activating different
downstream TFs, to induce discrete context-dependent transcriptional
cascades. These findings provide new insights into the dynamic nature of
the transcriptional regulatory architecture underlying behavior in the
brain.
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Hamilton, Adam (2019). Division of labor in honey bees is associated with transcriptional regulatory plasticity in the brain. figshare. Collection. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4473575.v1
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CATEGORIES
- Animal behaviour
- Animal neurobiology
- Behavioural neuroscience
- Bioinformatics and computational biology not elsewhere classified
- Gene expression (incl. microarray and other genome-wide approaches)
- Genomics
- Neurosciences not elsewhere classified
- Animal physiology - biophysics
- Animal physiology - cell
- Animal physiology - systems