Honeybee Genome Sequenced

mapkinase writes to let us know about articles in Nature on the completed sequencing of the honeybee genome. From the first article: "Two other insects have already been sequenced: the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae, and one of science's great model organisms, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. Like these, the bee is much easier to manipulate and study than, say, the monkey. But unlike the mosquito and the fruitfly, the bee's social behavior is of special interest." Another article in the same issue clarifies why this sequencing is important: "The genome is helping to reveal some of those [such as the bees' dance language and the division of labor in the hive] mechanisms. For instance, there are 65 spots in the genome that seem to code for short RNA molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs), molecular switches that can turn genes on or off. The researchers found that miRNA activity differs between bees doing different jobs."

Comments

Re:honeybees are very cool

[edschurr]

Another cool thing about them is that two genes exist in some groups of honey bee which helps them fight a disease that affects larvae. The first gene causes* them to remove the wax covering the diseased larvae, and the second causes* them to toss the larvae out of the nest to die. Groups of honey bees that only have the first gene will remove the wax and leave it at that. However, it's apparantly more complex than two genes causing behaviour because some honey bees do it without those genes.

Well, that's how I remember it from The Selfish Gene by Dawkins.

* perhaps not completely