CSH Cold Spring Harbor Meeting “Honey bee genomics

CSH Cold Spring Harbor Meeting “Honey bee genomics & Biology, New
York, USA, May 6 - 8, 2007 – ABSTRACT
Yves Le Conte
HONEY BEE GENE EXPRESSION IN RESPONSE TO VARROA
MITE INFESTATION.
Yves Le Conte1, Maria Navajas2, Sandrine Cros-Arteil2, Alain
Migeon2, Didier Crauser1, Jean-Marc Bécard1, Charlie Whitfield and
Gene E. Robinson3
1
INRA, UMR 406 Ecologie des invertébrés, Site Agroparc, 84914 Avignon
cedex 9, France
2
INRA, CBGP, UMR 1062, Campus Intern. Baillarguet, CS 30016, 34980
Montpellier-sur-Lez, France
3
Institute for Genomic Biology, Department of Entomology, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 505 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
The effect of pathogens and pests on honey bee gene expression is a fundamental
area of research, which can lead to new molecular tools for diagnostics and
selective breeding in beekeeping. In that framework, we investigated whether the
mite parasite Varroa destructor induces modifications in Apis. mellifera gene
transcript levels, as a first step to identify pathways that are differentially
expressed in bees in association with this parasite. As the reproduction of the mite
can be modulated by the immature bees, we looked at gene expression in
parasitized pupae. We compared parasitized and non-parasitized full-sister pupae,
from two different genetic stocks: one susceptible and one resistant to Varroa.
We used a honey bee cDNA microarray, which contained a total of ≈6,778
cDNAs representing ≈5,500 different genes, 40% of which have been annotated
primarily by using comparisons to Drosophila genes and Gene Ontology.
Confirmation of a selected set of functionally annotated bee transcripts obtained
from microarray analysis was performed with real-time qRT-PCR. We identified
a set of genes that showed differential expression as a function of parasitization, a
different set that showed differential expression as a function of genotype, and a
set of genes that were affected by both factors. These patterns, and some of these
genes that define them, will be discussed.
This work was supported by FEOGA grant of the EC.
Communication orale.