ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Alternative splicing of a single transcription factor drives selfish reproductive behavior in honeybee workers (Apis mellifera).
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers.
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32 citing papers in PubMed, 87 citations in OpenAlex.
- Lateralized Gene Splicing in the Brain is Associated With Lateralized Feeding Behavior in an Asymmetrical Scale-eating Cichlid Fish.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Regulatory RNA Patterns Associated with Bee Evolution Should Be Interpreted with Caution, but Correlational Studies Should Not Be Entirely Dismissed.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Review
- The eusocial non-code: Unveiling the impact of noncoding RNAs on Hymenoptera eusocial evolution.Non-coding RNA research · 2025Review
- Postsynaptic lncRNA Sera/Pkm2 pathway orchestrates the transition from social competition to rank by remodeling the neural ensemble in mPFC.Cell discovery · 2024Article
- Article
- Examining parent-of-origin effects on transcription and RNA methylation in mediating aggressive behavior in honey bees (Apis mellifera).BMC genomics · 2023Article
- Putting hornets on the genomic map.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Honey bee functional genomics using symbiont-mediated RNAi.Nature protocols · 2023Review
- Alternative splicing as a source of phenotypic diversity.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2022Review
- Evidence of capacitation in the parasitoid wasp,Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Pheromonal Regulation of the Reproductive Division of Labor in Social Insects.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2020Review
- Comparative Analysis of Brain and Fat Body Gene Splicing Patterns in the Honey Bee,G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2019Article
- A Single SNP Turns a Social Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Worker into a Selfish Parasite.Molecular biology and evolution · 2019Article
- Reproductive parasitism by worker honey bees suppressed by queens through regulation of worker mandibular secretions.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Building a new research framework for social evolution: intralocus caste antagonism.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2018Review
- Diverse Factors Affecting Efficiency of RNAi in Honey Bee Viruses.Frontiers in genetics · 2018Article
- Notch signalling mediates reproductive constraint in the adult worker honeybee.Nature communications · 2016Article
- Ties between ageing plasticity and reproductive physiology in honey bees (Apis mellifera) reveal a positive relation between fecundity and longevity as consequence of advanced social evolution.Current opinion in insect science · 2016Review
- Identification of Multiple Loci Associated with Social Parasitism in Honeybees.PLoS genetics · 2016Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In eusocial insects the production of daughters is generally restricted to mated queens, and unmated workers are functionally sterile. The evolution of this worker sterility has been plausibly explained by kin selection theory [Hamilton W (1964) J Theor Biol 7:1-52], and many traits have evolved to prevent conflict over reproduction among the females in an insect colony. In honeybees (Apis mellifera), worker reproduction is regulated by the queen, brood pheromones, and worker policing. However, workers of the Cape honeybee, Apis mellifera capensis, can evade this control and establish themselves as social parasites by activating their ovaries, parthenogenetically producing diploid female offspring (thelytoky) and producing queen-like amounts of queen pheromones. All these traits have been shown to be strongly influenced by a single locus on chromosome 13 [Lattorff HMG, et al. (2007) Biol Lett 3:292-295]. We screened this region for candidate genes and found that alternative splicing of a gene homologous to the gemini transcription factor of Drosophila controls worker sterility. Knocking out the critical exon in a series of RNAi experiments resulted in rapid worker ovary activation-one of the traits characteristic of the social parasites. This genetic switch may be controlled by a short intronic splice enhancer motif of nine nucleotides attached to the alternative splice site. The lack of this motif in parasitic Cape honeybee clones suggests that the removal of nine nucleotides from the altruistic worker genome may be sufficient to turn a honeybee from an altruistic worker into a parasite.
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