the honey bee epigenomes differential methylation of brain dna in queens and workers蜜蜂表观基因组差异dna甲基化的大脑在皇后区和工人.pdf

The Honey Bee Epigenomes: Differential Methylation of Brain DNA in Queens and Workers 1. 2. 3 4 1 Frank Lyko , Sylvain Foret , Robert Kucharski , Stephan Wolf , Cassandra Falckenhayn , Ryszard Maleszka3* 1 Division of Epigenetics, DKFZ-ZMBH Alliance, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany, 2 ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, 3 Research School of Biology, the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, 4 Genomics and Proteomics Core Facility, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany Abstract In honey bees (Apis mellifera) the behaviorally and reproductively distinct queen and worker female castes derive from the same genome as a result of differential intake of royal jelly and are implemented in concert with DNA methylation. To determine if these very different diet-controlled phenotypes correlate with unique brain methylomes, we conducted a study to determine the methyl cytosine (mC) distribution in the brains of queens and workers at single-base-pair resolution using shotgun bisulfite sequencing technology. The whole-genome sequencing was validated by deep 454 sequencing of selected amplicons representing eight methylated genes. We found that nearly all mCs are located in CpG dinucleotides in the exons of 5,854 genes showing greater sequence conservation than non-methylated genes. Over 550 genes show significant methylation differences between queens and workers, revealing the intricate dynamics of methylation patterns. The distinctiveness of the differentially methylated genes is underscored by their intermediate CpG densities relative to drastically CpG-dep