Mandibular gland (MG) secretions of honey bee are synthesized through a three-step bifurcation pathway, and the initiate hydroxylation step is carried out by cytochrome P450 enzymes (P450). We have previously revealed that CYP6AS8 and CYP6AS11 are possibly participating in this process. In this study, we evaluated the function of CYP6AS8 in honey bee worker’s MG using RNA interference technology, and we investigated the expression pattern of CYP6AS8 in MGs from workers of different ages. We found that the expression of CYP6AS8 was detectable in MGs across the whole life cycle of Apis mellifera except for newly emerged workers and predominately expressed at day 15. RNAi knockdown revealed that the production of 10-HDA was synchronized with the expression level of CYP6AS8 in MG of honey bee workers; the downregulation of CYP6AS8 caused a significant reduction of 10-HDA content, demonstrating that CYP6AS8 is indispensable for 10-HDA biosynthesis. Our current results confirm that CYP6AS8 modulates 10-HDA biosynthesis in MGs of western honey bee worker and provided the first evidence to identify the certain P450 participate in the MG secretion biosynthesis of honey bee workers.

中文翻译：

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CYP6AS8 是一种细胞色素 P450，与蜜蜂（Apis mellifera）工人的 10-HDA 生物合成有关

蜜蜂的下颌腺 (MG) 分泌物通过三步分叉途径合成，起始羟基化步骤由细胞色素 P450 酶 (P450) 进行。我们之前已经透露 CYP6AS8 和 CYP6AS11 可能参与了这个过程。在本研究中，我们使用 RNA 干扰技术评估了 CYP6AS8 在蜜蜂工蜂 MG 中的功能，并研究了 CYP6AS8 在来自不同年龄工蜂的 MG 中的表达模式。我们发现 CYP6AS8 的表达在蜜蜂整个生命周期的 MG 中都可检测到，除了新出现的工人，并且主要在第 15 天表达。RNAi 敲低显示 10-HDA 的产生与 CYP6AS8 的表达水平同步蜜蜂工MG；CYP6AS8 的下调导致 10-HDA 含量显着降低，表明 CYP6AS8 对 10-HDA 生物合成是必不可少的。我们目前的结果证实 CYP6AS8 调节西方蜜蜂工蜂 MG 中的 10-HDA 生物合成，并提供了第一个证据来确定某些 P450 参与蜜蜂工蜂的 MG 分泌生物合成。