Identifying a developmental transition in honey bees using gene expression data.

ABSTRACT: In many organisms, interactions among genes lead to multiple functional states, and changes to interactions can lead to transitions into new states. These transitions can be related to bifurcations (or critical points) in dynamical systems theory. Characterizing these collective transitions is a major challenge for systems biology. Here, we develop a statistical method for identifying bistability near a continuous transition directly from high-dimensional gene expression data. We apply the method to data from honey bees, where a known developmental transition occurs between bees performing tasks in the nest and leaving the nest to forage. Our method, which makes use of the expected shape of the distribution of gene expression levels near a transition, successfully identifies the emergence

SUBMITTER: Daniels BC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10547183 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature