Vitellogenin, juvenile hormone, insulin signaling, and queen honey bee longevity

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 104; no. 17; pp. 7128 - 7133
• Main Authors: Corona, Miguel, Velarde, Rodrigo A, Remolina, Silvia, Moran-Lauter, Adrienne, Wang, Ying, Hughes, Kimberly A, Robinson, Gene E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 24.04.2007; National Acad Sciences
• Subjects: Abdomen; Animals; Apis mellifera; Bees; Bees - cytology; Bees - drug effects; Bees - metabolism; Biological Sciences; drone honey bees; Drosophila; Entomology; Fecundity; Fertility; gene expression; gene expression regulation; Gene Expression Regulation - drug effects; Honey; hormonal regulation; Hormones; In Situ Hybridization; Insect Proteins - metabolism; Insulin; Insulin - genetics; Insulin - metabolism; insulin-like growth factor I; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I - genetics; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I - metabolism; juvenile hormones; Juvenile Hormones - metabolism; Life expectancy; Longevity; Longevity - drug effects; Longevity - physiology; messenger RNA; Methoprene - pharmacology; Models, Biological; Organ Specificity - drug effects; Oxidative stress; Oxidative Stress - drug effects; queen honey bees; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Signal Transduction - drug effects; stress tolerance; vitellogenin; Vitellogenins - genetics; Vitellogenins - metabolism; worker honey bees

In most animals, longevity is achieved at the expense of fertility, but queen honey bees do not show this tradeoff. Queens are both long-lived and fertile, whereas workers, derived from the same genome, are both relatively short-lived and normally sterile. It has been suggested, on the basis of resu...