Data from: Genome-wide association study of a Varroa-specific defense behavior in honeybees (Apis mellifera)

Honey bees are exposed to many damaging pathogens and parasites. The most devastating is Varroa destructor, which mainly affects the brood. A promising approach for preventing its spread is to breed Varroa-resistant honey bees. One trait that has been shown to provide significant resistance against the Varroa mite is hygienic behavior, which is a behavioral response of honeybee workers to brood diseases in general. Here we report the use of an Affymetrix 44K SNP array to analyze SNPs associated with detection and uncapping of Varroa-parasitized brood by individual worker bees (Apis mellifera). For this study, 22,000 individually labeled bees were video-monitored and a sample of 122 cases and 122 controls was collected and analyzed to determine the dependence / independence of SNP genotypes from hygienic and non-hygienic behavior on a genome-wide scale. After false-discovery rate correction of the p-values, six SNP markers had highly significant associations with the trait investigated (alpha < 0.01). Inspection of the genomic regions around these SNPs led to the discovery of putative candidate genes.蜜蜂会接触多种具有破坏性的病原体与寄生虫。其中危害最严重的是狄斯瓦螨（Varroa destructor），该螨主要侵染蜂子。培育抗狄斯瓦螨的蜜蜂品系，是阻止其传播的有效途径之一。已被证实能显著抵御狄斯瓦螨的关键性状之一为卫生行为（hygienic behavior），该行为是工蜂针对各类蜂子病害的本能应答。本研究利用Affymetrix 44K单核苷酸多态性（SNP）芯片，对西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）工蜂识别并开启被狄斯瓦螨侵染的蜂子巢房盖这一行为相关的SNP位点展开分析。本次研究共对22000只带有个体标识的蜜蜂进行视频监控，并采集122个病例样本与122个对照样本，在全基因组范围内分析SNP基因型与卫生行为、非卫生行为之间的依赖/独立关联。对P值进行错误发现率（false discovery rate, FDR）校正后，共有6个SNP标记与所研究的性状呈现极显著关联（α<0.01）。对这些SNP位点周边的基因组区域进行解析后，本研究筛选出若干潜在候选基因。