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Reversible switching between epigenetic states in honeybee behavioral subcastes

Nature Neuroscience volume 15, pages 1371–1373 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

In honeybee societies, distinct caste phenotypes are created from the same genotype, suggesting a role for epigenetics in deriving these behaviorally different phenotypes. We found no differences in DNA methylation between irreversible worker and queen castes, but substantial differences between nurses and forager subcastes. Reverting foragers back to nurses reestablished methylation levels for a majority of genes and provides, to the best of our knowledge, the first evidence in any organism of reversible epigenetic changes associated with behavior.

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Figure 1: DNA methylation changes were found between nurses and foragers, but not between queens and workers.
Figure 2: DNA methylation distinguishes nurses, foragers and reverted nurses.

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Gene Expression Omnibus

Sequence Read Archive

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. Fennern, N. Baker, K. Flores and O. Kaftanoglu for assistance with colonies, bees and brain dissections, and A. Doi for reviewing the manuscript. We thank G. Klein for serving as scientific schadchen to A.P.F. and G.V.A. after hearing them lecture on different occasions at I. Ernberg's “What is Life” series at the Karolinska Institute, without which this research would not have taken place. G.V.A. was funded by the Research Council of Norway #191699 and the PEW Charitable Trust #2009-000068-001. A.P.F. was funded by US National Institutes of Health grant 1DP1OD008324.

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Author notes

  1. Brian R Herb and Florian Wolschin: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Epigenetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Brian R Herb, Kasper D Hansen, Martin J Aryee & Andrew P Feinberg

  2. Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Brian R Herb & Andrew P Feinberg

  3. Department of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Aas, Norway

    Florian Wolschin & Gro V Amdam

  4. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

    Florian Wolschin & Gro V Amdam

  5. Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Kasper D Hansen, Ben Langmead, Rafael Irizarry & Andrew P Feinberg

  6. Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Martin J Aryee

  7. Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    Andrew P Feinberg

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  1. Brian R Herb
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Contributions

B.R.H. performed genome-scale, gene-specific DNA methylation analysis and performed gene expression analysis. F.W. raised bees and manipulated hives for reversion experiment, and collected bees and dissected brains. R.I., M.J.A., K.D.H., B.L. and B.R.H. performed statistical analysis. B.R.H. and M.J.A. generated microarray data sets. B.R.H., B.L. and K.D.H. generated WGBS and RNAseq data sets. A.P.F. and G.V.A. conceived, designed and oversaw the experiments. A.P.F., B.R.H. and G.V.A. wrote the paper with the assistance of K.D.H., M.J.A., B.L. and F.W.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Gro V Amdam or Andrew P Feinberg.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Herb, B., Wolschin, F., Hansen, K. et al. Reversible switching between epigenetic states in honeybee behavioral subcastes. Nat Neurosci 15, 1371–1373 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3218

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