Developmental Transcriptome for a Facultatively Eusocial Bee, Megalopta genalis.
Transcriptomes provide excellent foundational resources for mechanistic and evolutionary analyses of complex traits. We present a developmental transcriptome for the facultatively eusocial bee Megalopta genalis, which represents a potential transition point in the evolution of eusociality. A de novo transcriptome assembly of Megalopta genalis was generated using paired-end Illumina sequencing and the Trinity assembler. Males and females of all life stages were aligned to this transcriptome for analysis of gene expression profiles throughout development. Gene Ontology analysis indicates that stage-specific genes are involved in ion transport, cell-cell signaling, and metabolism. A number of distinct biological processes are upregulated in each life stage, and transitions between life stages involve shifts in dominant functional processes, including shifts from transcriptional regulation in embryos to metabolism in larvae, and increased lipid metabolism in adults. We expect that this transcriptome will provide a useful resource for future analyses to better understand the molecular basis of the evolution of eusociality and, more generally, phenotypic plasticity.
Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama 20521-9100 Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 bmjones2@illinois.edu.
Beryl M
BM
Jones
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama City, Panama 20521-9100.
William T
WT
Wcislo
Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Department of Entomology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801.
Gene E
GE
Robinson
D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D005810:Multigene Family; D010641:Phenotype; D059467:Transcriptome
development; eusociality; phenotypic plasticity; social evolution; transcriptomics