Open AccessAge‐dependent transcriptional and epigenomic responses to light exposure in the honey bee brain
Author(s) -
Becker Nils,
Kucharski Robert,
Rössler Wolfgang,
Maleszka Ryszard
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
febs open bio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.718
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 2211-5463
DOI - 10.1002/2211-5463.12084
Subject(s) - epigenomics , honey bee , biology , epigenetics , transcriptome , dna methylation , mushroom bodies , gene expression , epigenome , foraging , gene , genetics , neuroscience , ecology , drosophila melanogaster
Light is a powerful environmental stimulus of special importance in social honey bees that undergo a behavioral transition from in‐hive to outdoor foraging duties. Our previous work has shown that light exposure induces structural neuronal plasticity in the mushroom bodies ( MB s), a brain center implicated in processing inputs from sensory modalities. Here, we extended these analyses to the molecular level to unravel light‐induced transcriptomic and epigenomic changes in the honey bee brain. We have compared gene expression in brain compartments of 1‐ and 7‐day‐old light‐exposed honey bees with age‐matched dark‐kept individuals. We have found a number of differentially expressed genes ( DEG s), both novel and conserved, including several genes with reported roles in neuronal plasticity. Most of the DEG s show age‐related changes in the amplitude of light‐induced expression and are likely to be both developmentally and environmentally regulated. Some of the DEG s are either known to be methylated or are implicated in epigenetic processes suggesting that responses to light exposure are at least partly regulated at the epigenome level. Consistent with this idea light alters the DNA methylation pattern of bgm , one of the DEG s affected by light exposure, and the expression of micro RNA miR‐932 . This confirms the usefulness of our approach to identify candidate genes for neuronal plasticity and provides evidence for the role of epigenetic processes in driving the molecular responses to visual stimulation.