Transcriptomic analysis of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen spermathecae reveals genes that may be involved in sperm storage after mating.

ABSTRACT: Honey bee (Apis mellifera) queens have a remarkable organ, the spermatheca, which successfully stores sperm for years after a virgin queen mates. This study uniquely characterized and quantified the transcriptomes of the spermathecae from mated and virgin honey bee queens via RNA sequencing to identify differences in mRNA levels based on a queen's mating status. The transcriptome of drone semen was analyzed for comparison. Samples from three individual bees were independently analyzed for mated queen spermathecae and virgin queen spermathecae, and three pools of semen from ten drones each were collected from three separate colonies. In total, the expression of 11,233 genes was identified in mated queen spermathecae, 10,521 in virgin queen spermathecae, and 10,407 in drone semen. Using a cu

SUBMITTER: Rangel J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7793254 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature