Honeybees Show You Are What You Eat

Scientists have made an interesting new discovery in epigenetics, using honeybees.  When honeybees produce female larvae, these larvae are mostly destined to become workers of the colony, but a few however will grow up to become queens.  Queen bees differ significantly from workers in morphological and physiological traits.  Amongst other differences queens are bigger, their reproductive capabilities are massively greater, they behave differently and they live significantly longer.  Where things start to get really interesting though is that genetically identical female larvae can develop into either a worker or a queen depending on what they are fed.

Larvae destined to become queens are fed a substance called royal-jelly by nurse bees, and this is believed to be the causative agent behind whether a bee develops as a worker or a queen.  Kucharski et al (2008) by injecting small interfering RNA into newly hatched bee larvae, were able to silence the expression of DNA methyltransferase Dnmt3 in the larvae.  Dnmt3 is a key component of DNA methylation and epigenetic control in a range of organisms, and by silencing its expression in the bee larvae they caused the larvae to develope in a manner very similar to as if they had been fed royal-jelly.

These results suggest DNA methylation is used to store epigenetic information in honeybees, that this information can be used in different ways depending on nutrition, and that epigenetic modifications can have profound effects on the developmental fate, behavior, size, reproductive capability and longevity of an organism.

Kucharski, R., Maleszka, J., Foret, R., & Maleszka, R.  Nutritional control of reproductive status in honeybees via DNA methylation. Science, 319, 1827-1830.

Jason Raguse (33710727)