Microarray analysis of natural socially regulated plasticity in circadian rhythms of honey bees.

ABSTRACT: Honey bee workers care for ("nurse") the brood around the clock without circadian rhythmicity, but then they forage outside with strong circadian rhythms and a consolidated nightly rest. This chronobiological plasticity is associated with variation in the expression of the canonical "clock genes" that regulate the circadian clock: nurse bees show no brain rhythms of expression, while foragers do. These results suggest that the circadian system is organized differently in nurses and foragers. Nurses switch to activity with circadian rhythms shortly after being removed from the hive, suggesting that at least some clock cells in their brain continue to measure time while in the hive. We performed a microarray genome-wide survey to determine general patterns of brain gene expression in nurses

SUBMITTER: Rodriguez-Zas SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3313495 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature