Queens and workers are very distinct phenotypes that develop from the same genome. Larvae from worker cells up to 3.5 d old can be transferred to larger queen cells and will subsequently be reared as queens and develop into functional queens. This has become a very popular queen rearing practice in contemporary apiculture. Here we used RNA-Seq to study the consequences of rearing queens from transplanted worker larvae on the transcriptome of the adult queens. We found that queens reared from transferred older larvae developed slower, weighted less, and had fewer ovarioles than queens reared from transferred eggs, indicating queens were cryptically intercaste. RNA-Seq analysis revealed differentially expressed genes between queens reared from transferred larvae compared with queens reared from transferred eggs: the older the larvae transferred, the greater the number of differentially expressed genes. Many of the differentially expressed genes had functions related to reproduction, longevity, immunity, or metabolism, suggesting that the health and long-term viability of queens was compromised. Our finds verify the previous studies that adult queens reared from older transferred larvae were of lower quality than queens reared from transferred eggs or younger larvae.

中文翻译：

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从不同年龄的卵或工蜂幼虫饲养的成年蜜蜂蜂王 (Apis mellifera) 的转录组学、形态学和发育比较

皇后和工人是从相同基因组发育而来的非常不同的表型。从工作细胞到 3.5 天大的幼虫可以转移到更大的蜂王细胞中，随后将作为蜂王饲养并发育成有功能的蜂王。这已成为当代养蜂业中非常流行的蜂王饲养方式。在这里，我们使用 RNA-Seq 来研究从移植的工蚁幼虫中饲养蚁后对成年蚁后转录组的影响。我们发现，与从转移的卵中饲养的蜂王相比，由移植的年长幼虫饲养的蜂王发育更慢、体重更轻，卵巢的数量也更少，这表明蜂王是隐秘的间种姓。RNA-Seq 分析揭示了由移植幼虫饲养的皇后与由移植卵饲养的皇后之间的差异表达基因：移植的幼虫年龄越大，差异表达基因的数量越多。许多差异表达的基因具有与繁殖、长寿、免疫或新陈代谢相关的功能，表明蜂王的健康和长期生存能力受到损害。我们的发现证实了之前的研究，即由较老的转移幼虫饲养的成年蜂王的质量低于由转移卵或较年轻幼虫饲养的蜂王。