Data from: Female developmental environment delays development of male honeybee (Apis mellifera)

Background Nutrition and cell size play an important role in the
determination of caste differentiation in queen and
worker of honeybees (Apis mellifera), whereas the
haploid genome dominates the differentiation of drones.
However, the effects of female developmental environment
on the development of males remain unclear. In this study, young
drone larvae were transferred into worker cells (WCs) or remained in drone
cells (DCs) to rear drones. The drone larvae were also grafted
into queen cells (QCs) for 48 hrs and then transplanted
into drone cells until emerging. Morphological indexes and
reproductive organs of these three types of newly emerged drones
were measured. Newly emerged drones and 3-day drone
larvae from WCs, DCs and QCs were sequenced by RNA sequencing
(RNA-Seq). Results The amount of food remaining in cells of the QC and WC
groups was significantly different to that in the DC group at the early
larval stage. Morphological results showed that newly emerged
DC drones had bigger body sizes and more well-developed
reproductive tissues than WC and QC drones, whereas the reproductive
tissues of QC drones were relatively larger than those of WC
drones. Additionally, gene expression results showed a clear difference
among three groups. At the larval stage, there were 889, 1761 and 1927
significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in WC/DC,
QC/DC and WC/QC comparisons, respectively. The number of
DEGs decreased in adult drones of these
three comparisons [678 (WC/DC), 338 (QC/DC) and
518 (WC/QC)]. A high number of
DEGs were involved in sex differentiation,
growth, olfaction, vision, mammalian target of rapamycin
(mTOR), Wnt signaling pathways, and other
processes.  Conclusion This study
demonstrated that the developmental environment of
honeybee females can delay male development, which
serves as a model for understanding the regulation of sex differentiation
and male development in social insects by environmental factors.