Age and Behavior-Dependent Differential miRNAs Expression in the Hypopharyngeal Glands of Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.)

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the expression differences of miRNAs in the hypopharyngeal glands (HPGs) of honeybees at three developmental stages and to explore their regulation functions in the HPGs development. Small RNA sequencing was employed to analyze the miRNA profiles of HPGs in newly-emerged bees (NEB), nurse bees (NB), and forager bees (FB). Results showed that a total of 153 known miRNAs were found in the three stages, and ame-miR-276-3p, ame-miR-375-3p, ame-miR-14-3p, ame-miR-275-3p, and ame-miR-3477-5p were the top five most abundant ones. Furthermore, the expression of 11 miRNAs, 17 miRNAs, and 18 miRNAs were significantly different in NB vs. FB comparison, NB vs. NEB comparison, and in FB vs. NEB comparison, respectively, of which ame-miR-184-3p and ame-miR-252a-5p were downregulated in NB compared with that in both the FB and NEB, while ame-miR-11-3p, ame-miR-281-3p, and ame-miR-31a-5p had lower expression levels in FB compared with that in both the NB and NEB. Bioinformatic analysis showed that the potential target genes of the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) were mainly enriched in several key signaling pathways, including mTOR signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway-fly, FoxO signaling pathway, Hippo signaling pathway-fly. Overall, our study characterized the miRNA profiles in the HPGs of honeybees at three different developmental stages and provided a basis for further study of the roles of miRNAs in HPGs development.