Researchers from Johns Hopkins report on what is considered to be the first evidence that honeybees’ behavioral patterns are linked to the reversible chemical “tagging” of their genes. The findings may be relevant to other animals, including humans, as well.

Working with bee expert Dr. Gro Amdam, the team identified the two different “professions” that female bees generally enter. They either become “nurses,” which tend to the queen and her larvae at the hive, or “foragers,” which leave the hive to gather pollen and other supplies. While all of these bees are “genetically identical sisters,” they still perform different tasks. The scientists wanted to know why.

They started the experiment by filling new hives with bees of the same age (to control for age influencing the chosen “career paths”) and watched as the bees divided themselves up into nurses and foragers. Studying their subjects’ DNA, the scientists discovered 155 regions with different tag patterns depending on if the bee was a forager or a nurse.

To test the permanency of these tags, they removed all the nurses from the hive to see if the foragers would change jobs. When the bees did change, the researchers studied the DNA differences again, this time between foragers and foragers-turned-nurses. One hundred and seven DNA regions were tagged differently between the two groups.

Amdam explained the findings. “It’s like one of those pictures that portray two different images depending on your angle of view,” she says. “The bee genome contains images of both nurses and foragers. The tags on the DNA give the brain its coordinates so that it knows what kind of behavior to project.”

The researchers hope their results will be used to better understand human behavioral issues such as learning, memory, mood disorders and stress responses — all of which involve interactions similar to those in the study.

So are the specifics of my morning routine a result of my DNA? It’s certainly possible.

Main photo credit: Shutterstock

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The research, which used federal funding and involved 440 scientists from 32 laboratories around the world, shows that a lot of what makes humanity function the way it does lies in material that was initially dismissed as “junk DNA.” These bits of DNA aren’t genes, but they contain switches that determine when and how various genes are activated.

Eric Lander, who was involved in documenting humanity’s genes through the Human Genome Project, compares the two endeavors to maps. If the Human Genome Project was like a satellite photo of the Earth, the new research is like Google Maps, with detailed data on roads, traffic flow and other “on the ground” activity.

Scientists say the wealth of new information generated by the project, some of which is being published in a number of major journals, may lead to new therapies for all sorts of diseases. For example, prostate cancer produces gene mutations that can’t easily be remedied with drugs, but it may be possible to target the control switches in DNA that causes the mutations.

The findings help researchers understand how the environment can affect the development of diseases. Even small environmental changes may result in changes to gene switches that determine whether someone becomes ill or not.

Before the project began in 2003, the general scientific consensus was that only 5 to 10 percent of human DNA is actually used. Now, the general understanding is that most of it is used, and at least half the genome consists of a stunningly huge array of instructions for turning genes on or off.

So far, the new research has generated 15 trillion bytes of raw data, used more than 300 years of computer time to analyze it and produced hundreds of scientific papers.

Image credit: Christoph Bock (Max Planck Institute for Informatics)

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Now, using only a tiny fragment of a leaf or a grain of pollen, any plant in Wales can be identified. The database is useful in numerous ways. Welsh scientists are now tracking pollinators to study why they are endangered, using DNA barcoding to identify pollen grains attached to the bees. The barcoding can also be used to study the habitat requirements of endangered animals, studying the types of plants they eat at different times of year.

The database can also be used to help predict effects of climate change, reconstruct past landscapes, monitor hay fever by identifying specific pollens, and even assist in forensic investigations by identifying plant fragments found on clothing at crime scenes.

The scientists plan to work on cataloging flora for the rest of the UK next. All of the barcodes are being uploaded to the international Barcode of Life Database.

Photo credit: blumenbiene/Flickr

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