Genomic imprinting is the differential expression alleles in diploid individuals, with the expression being dependent on the sex of the parent from which it was inherited. Haig's kinship theory hypothesizes that genomic imprinting is due to an evolutionary conflict of interest between alleles from the mother and father. In social insects, it has been suggested that genomic imprinting should be widespread. One recent study identified parent‐of‐origin expression in honey bees and found evidence supporting the kinship theory. However, little is known about genomic imprinting in insects and multiple theoretical predictions must be tested to avoid single‐study confirmation bias. We, therefore, tested for parent‐of‐origin expression in a primitively eusocial bee. We found equal numbers of maternally and paternally biased expressed genes. The most highly biased genes were maternally expressed, offering support for the kinship theory. We also found low conservation of potentially imprinted genes with the honey bee, suggesting rapid evolution of genomic imprinting in Hymenoptera.

中文翻译：

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熊蜂 Bombus terrestris 中的起源基因表达支持黑格关于基因组印记进化的亲缘理论


基因组印记是二倍体个体中的差异表达等位基因，其表达取决于遗传自亲本的性别。黑格的亲属理论假设基因组印记是由于来自母亲和父亲的等位基因之间的进化利益冲突造成的。在社会性昆虫中，有人认为基因组印记应该广泛存在。最近的一项研究确定了蜜蜂中的亲本表达，并发现了支持亲缘关系理论的证据。然而，人们对昆虫的基因组印记知之甚少，必须测试多种理论预测以避免单一研究确认偏差。因此，我们测试了原始社会性蜜蜂的亲本表达。我们发现母系和父系偏向的表达基因数量相同。最高度偏差的基因是母系表达的，为亲属关系理论提供了支持。我们还发现蜜蜂潜在印记基因的保守性较低，这表明膜翅目基因组印记的快速进化。