TY - JOUR
T1 - Vitellogenin in the honey bee midgut
AU - Harwood, Gyan
AU - Amdam, Gro
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, INRAE, DIB and Springer-Verlag France SAS, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - The alimentary canal carries out many functions critical to insect physiology, including digesting and absorbing nutrients and water, housing beneficial gut bacteria, and eliciting immunological responses. The midgut, in particular, is a compartment for digestion and absorption and serves as a first point of contact between ingested pathogens and the insect immune system. Recently, we found the protein vitellogenin (Vg) localized in midgut cells of some honey bee workers. Vg is an important egg-yolk precursor protein in nearly all oviparous animals, but it also has immunological functions shared across many taxa. Additional and unexpected Vg functions have been characterized in honey bees, but none of these functions involve the midgut directly. Therefore, we sought to map out how Vg is localized and expressed in this organ across the two most common worker bee behavioral groups, namely nurses and foragers. We used immunohistochemistry and quantitative reverse transcription PCR to show Vg has different localization patterns in nurses and foragers and limited gene expression. Our study provides a platform for building a more detailed understanding of the possible roles of Vg in insect midgut cells, and it adds to the current knowledge of this fascinating, multi-functional protein.
AB - The alimentary canal carries out many functions critical to insect physiology, including digesting and absorbing nutrients and water, housing beneficial gut bacteria, and eliciting immunological responses. The midgut, in particular, is a compartment for digestion and absorption and serves as a first point of contact between ingested pathogens and the insect immune system. Recently, we found the protein vitellogenin (Vg) localized in midgut cells of some honey bee workers. Vg is an important egg-yolk precursor protein in nearly all oviparous animals, but it also has immunological functions shared across many taxa. Additional and unexpected Vg functions have been characterized in honey bees, but none of these functions involve the midgut directly. Therefore, we sought to map out how Vg is localized and expressed in this organ across the two most common worker bee behavioral groups, namely nurses and foragers. We used immunohistochemistry and quantitative reverse transcription PCR to show Vg has different localization patterns in nurses and foragers and limited gene expression. Our study provides a platform for building a more detailed understanding of the possible roles of Vg in insect midgut cells, and it adds to the current knowledge of this fascinating, multi-functional protein.
KW - Honey bee
KW - histology
KW - midgut
KW - peritrophic membrane
KW - vitellogenin
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U2 - 10.1007/s13592-021-00869-3
DO - 10.1007/s13592-021-00869-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85107519456
SN - 0044-8435
VL - 52
SP - 837
EP - 847
JO - Apidologie
JF - Apidologie
IS - 4
ER -