Transcriptomic and epigenetic responses to social challenge and their association with future behavior in honey bees (ChIP-Seq). Apis mellifera

We studied behavioral, brain transcriptomic and epigenetic responses of honey bees to social challenge. Bees were exposed to two intruders at different intervals. The initial exposure caused two behavioral effects at the individual level: an increase in the intensity of aggression toward a second intruder at 30 and 60 minutes, and an increased probability of responding aggressively toward a second intruder that persisted for two hours. The shorter-lived response was associated with one pattern of gene expression in the mushroom bodies, highlighted by genes related to cytoskeleton remodeling. The longer-lived response was associated with a different pattern; highlighted by genes related to hormones, stress response and transcription factors. Histone profiling revealed few changes in chromatin accessibility in response to social challenge; most differentially expressed genes were “ready” to be activated. These results demonstrate how biological embedding of a social challenge involves changes in the neurogenomic state to influence future behavior. Overall design: There are a total of 8 sets of pooled samples used in the H3K27Ac ChIP-Seq experiment equally balanced between 3 factors: 4 challenge (X) and 4 control (C); 4 30m and 4 120m; and 4 colony R41 and 4 colony R46.