Worker Honeybee Sterility: A Proteomic Analysis of Suppressed Ovary Activation

Eusocial behavior is extensively studied in the honeybee, Apis mellifera, as it displays an extreme form of altruism.
Honeybee workers are generally obligatory sterile in a bee colony
headed by a queen, but the inhibition of ovary activation is lifted
upon the absence of queen and larvae. Worker bees are then able to
develop mature, viable eggs. The detailed repressive physiological
mechanisms that are responsible for this remarkable phenomenon are
as of yet largely unknown. Physiological studies today mainly focus
on the transcriptome, while the proteome stays rather unexplored.
Here, we present a quantitative 2-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis
comparison between activated and inactivated worker ovaries and brains
of reproductive and sterile worker bees, including a spot map of ovaries,
containing 197 identified spots. Our findings suggest that suppression
of ovary activation might involve a constant interplay between primordial
oogenesis and subsequent degradation, which is probably mediated through
steroid and neuropeptide hormone signaling. Additionally, the observation
of higher viral protein loads in both the brains and ovaries of sterile
workers is particularly noteworthy. This data set will be of great
value for future research unraveling the physiological mechanisms
underlying the altruistic sterility in honeybee workers.

真社会性行为（eusocial behavior）在西方蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）中得到了广泛研究，该物种展现出极端形式的利他行为（altruism）。在蜂王统领的蜂群中，蜜蜂工蜂通常处于专性不育状态；当蜂群缺失蜂王与幼虫时，卵巢激活的抑制便会被解除，此时工蜂便可发育出成熟且具有活力的卵。介导这一非凡现象的具体抑制性生理机制，目前仍未被完全阐明。当前的生理学研究主要聚焦于转录组（transcriptome），而蛋白质组（proteome）的相关探索则相对匮乏。本研究针对激活与失活状态的工蜂卵巢，以及生殖型与不育型工蜂的大脑开展了定量双向差异凝胶电泳（2-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis）比较，并附带包含197个已鉴定斑点的卵巢斑点图谱。我们的研究结果显示，卵巢激活的抑制过程可能涉及原始卵子发生与后续降解之间的持续相互作用，这一过程大概率通过类固醇与神经肽激素信号通路介导。此外，不育工蜂的大脑与卵巢中均检测到更高的病毒蛋白载量，该观测结果尤为值得关注。本数据集将为未来解析蜜蜂工蜂利他性不育背后的生理机制提供重要的研究价值。