title: Genome-Wide Association Study of a Varroa-Specific Defense Behavior in Honeybees (Apis mellifera).
abstract: 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 nonhygienic behavior on a genome-wide scale. After false-discovery rate correction of the P values, 6 SNP markers had highly significant associations with the trait investigated (α < 0.01). Inspection of the genomic regions around these SNPs led to the discovery of putative candidate genes.
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Bee Research Hohen Neuendorf, 16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany (Spötter, Gupta, and Bienefeld); Institute of Mathematics, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (Gupta); and Leibniz-Institut für Nutztierbiologie (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany (Mayer and Reinsch).
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spötter
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Bee Research Hohen Neuendorf, 16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany (Spötter, Gupta, and Bienefeld); Institute of Mathematics, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (Gupta); and Leibniz-Institut für Nutztierbiologie (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany (Mayer and Reinsch).
authors.forename: Pooja
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Bee Research Hohen Neuendorf, 16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany (Spötter, Gupta, and Bienefeld); Institute of Mathematics, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (Gupta); and Leibniz-Institut für Nutztierbiologie (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany (Mayer and Reinsch).
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mayer
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Bee Research Hohen Neuendorf, 16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany (Spötter, Gupta, and Bienefeld); Institute of Mathematics, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (Gupta); and Leibniz-Institut für Nutztierbiologie (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany (Mayer and Reinsch).
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Reinsch
authors.affiliation: From the Institute for Bee Research Hohen Neuendorf, 16540 Hohen Neuendorf, Germany (Spötter, Gupta, and Bienefeld); Institute of Mathematics, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany (Gupta); and Leibniz-Institut für Nutztierbiologie (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany (Mayer and Reinsch). kaspar.bienefeld@hu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Kaspar
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bienefeld
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000235:genetics* / Q000469:parasitology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D049750:Genome, Insect; D005838:Genotype; D010641:Phenotype; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D057077:Varroidae
keywords: Candidate genes; SNP array; Varroa destructor; Varroa resistance.; hygienic behavior