ArticlePLoS biology2019
A genetic switch for worker nutrition-mediated traits in honeybees.
Article in PLoS biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed.
- Targeted Gene Editing in Honey Bees Using Liposome-Based CRISPR-Cas9.Biochemical genetics · 2026Article
- The fru gene specifies male cooperative behaviors in honeybee colonies.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Plasticity in climate change responses.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Evidence for vitellogenin DNA-binding in honey bees.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2025Article
- Antioxidant Potential of Pollen Polyphenols in Mitigating Environmental Stress in Honeybees (Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Transferable approaches to CRISPR-Cas9 induced genome editing in non-model insects: a brief guide.Frontiers in zoology · 2025Review
- Intragenomic conflict associated with extreme phenotypic plasticity in queen-worker caste determination in honey bees (Apis mellifera).Genome biology · 2025Article
- Structure-optimized sgRNA selection with PlatinumCRISPr for efficient Cas9 generation of knockouts.Genome research · 2024Article
- Review
- Dedicated developmental programing for group-supporting behaviors in eusocial honeybees.Science advances · 2024Article
- Acetylcholine and choline in honey bee (Apis mellifera) worker brood food are seasonal and age-dependent.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Mechanisms of Pathogen and Pesticide Resistance in Honey Bees.Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Review
- Recognition of polymorphic Csd proteins determines sex in the honeybee.Science advances · 2023Article
- Honey bee functional genomics using symbiont-mediated RNAi.Nature protocols · 2023Review
- Sexual dimorphism as a facilitator of worker caste evolution in ants.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- The function and evolution of a genetic switch controlling sexually dimorphic eye differentiation in honeybees.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Multisite imaging of neural activity using a genetically encoded calcium sensor in the honey bee.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Mutagenesis of Sex-SpecificCells · 2022Article
- Evolutionary History of Sexual Differentiation Mechanism in Insects.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Highly efficient site-specific integration of DNA fragments into the honeybee genome using CRISPR/Cas9.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Article
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8 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Highly social insects are characterized by caste dimorphism, with distinct size differences of reproductive organs between fertile queens and the more or less sterile workers. An abundance of nutrition or instruction via diet-specific compounds has been proposed as explanations for the nutrition-driven queen and worker polyphenism. Here, we further explored these models in the honeybee (Apis mellifera) using worker nutrition rearing and a novel mutational screening approach using the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9) method. The worker nutrition-driven size reduction of reproductive organs was restricted to the female sex, suggesting input from the sex determination pathway. Genetic screens on the sex determination genes in genetic females for size polyphenism revealed that doublesex (dsx) mutants display size-reduced reproductive organs irrespective of the sexual morphology of the organ tissue. In contrast, feminizer (fem) mutants lost the response to worker nutrition-driven size control. The first morphological worker mutants in honeybees demonstrate that the response to nutrition relies on a genetic program that is switched "ON" by the fem gene. Thus, the genetic instruction provided by the fem gene provides an entry point to genetically dissect the underlying processes that implement the size polyphenism.
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