title: Carbohydrate metabolism genes and pathways in insects: insights from the honey bee genome.
abstract: Carbohydrate-metabolizing enzymes may have particularly interesting roles in the honey bee, Apis mellifera, because this social insect has an extremely carbohydrate-rich diet, and nutrition plays important roles in caste determination and socially mediated behavioural plasticity. We annotated a total of 174 genes encoding carbohydrate-metabolizing enzymes and 28 genes encoding lipid-metabolizing enzymes, based on orthology to their counterparts in the fly, Drosophila melanogaster, and the mosquito, Anopheles gambiae. We found that the number of genes for carbohydrate metabolism appears to be more evolutionarily labile than for lipid metabolism. In particular, we identified striking changes in gene number or genomic organization for genes encoding glycolytic enzymes, cellulase, glucose oxidase and glucose dehydrogenases, glucose-methanol-choline (GMC) oxidoreductases, fucosyltransferases, and lysozymes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kunieda
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujiyuki
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kucharski
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Foret
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Ament
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Toth
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ohashi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kamikouchi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kage
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Morioka
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Beye
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kubo
authors.forename: G E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Maleszka
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000235:genetics*; D050260:Carbohydrate Metabolism / Q000235:genetics*; D002480:Cellulase / Q000235:genetics; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000378:metabolism; D005647:Fucosyltransferases / Q000235:genetics; D049750:Genome, Insect; D042843:Glucose 1-Dehydrogenase / Q000235:genetics; D005949:Glucose Oxidase / Q000235:genetics; D009113:Muramidase / Q000235:genetics; D010088:Oxidoreductases / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D005227:Fatty Acids; D010088:Oxidoreductases; D042843:Glucose 1-Dehydrogenase; D005949:Glucose Oxidase; D005647:Fucosyltransferases; D009113:Muramidase; D002480:Cellulase