Positive selection in cytochrome P450 genes is associated with gonad phenotype and mating strategy in social bees

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 5921
• Main Authors: Lago, Denyse Cavalcante, Nora, Luísa Czamanski, Hasselmann, Martin, Hartfelder, Klaus
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11-04-2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/136; 631/181; 631/208; Animals; Apis mellifera; Bees; Bombus terrestris; Cell Communication; Cytochrome; Cytochrome P450; Drones; Evolutionary genetics; Female; Genes; Genomes; Genotype & phenotype; Gonads; Honey; Humanities and Social Sciences; Larva; Male; Males; Mating; Melipona quadrifasciata; multidisciplinary; Phenotypes; Polyandry; Positive selection; Queens; Reproduction; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32898-6

The honey bee,
Apis mellifera
differs from all other social bees in its gonad phenotype and mating strategy. Honey bee queens and drones have tremendously enlarged gonads, and virgin queens mate with several males. In contrast, in all the other bees, the male and female gonads are small, and the females mate with only one or very few males, thus, suggesting an evolutionary and developmental link between gonad phenotype and mating strategy. RNA-seq comparisons of
A. mellifera
larval gonads revealed 870 genes as differentially expressed in queens
versus
workers and drones. Based on Gene Ontology enrichment we selected 45 genes for comparing the expression levels of their orthologs in the larval gonads of the bumble bee
Bombus terrestris
and the stingless bee,
Melipona quadrifasciata,
which revealed 24 genes as differentially represented. An evolutionary analysis of their orthologs in 13 solitary and social bee genomes revealed four genes with evidence of positive selection. Two of these encode cytochrome P450 proteins
,
and their gene trees indicated a lineage-specific evolution in the genus
Apis,
indicating that cytochrome P450 genes may be involved in the evolutionary association of polyandry and the exaggerated gonad phenotype in social bees.