The honey bee is an excellent model system to study behavioral ecology, behavioral genetics, and sociogenomics. Nucleic acid-based analyses enable a broad scope of research in functional genomics, disease diagnostics, mutant screening, and genetic breeding. Multiple levels of analysis lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the causes of phenotypic variation by integrating genomic variation, transcriptomic profiles, and epigenomic information. One limitation, however, is the sample preparation procedures to obtain high quality DNA and RNA simultaneously, particularly from small amounts of material, such as tissues of individual bees. We demonstrate that it is feasible to perform dual extractions of DNA and RNA from a single individual bee and compare the quality and quantity of the extracted nucleic acids using two different types of methods. There was a greater total yield of DNA and RNA from ethanol-based extractions with minimal differences in overall concentration in ng/uL. We describe here the first validated method for dual extraction of DNA and RNA specifically from individual honey bees (Apis mellifera).

中文翻译：

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从蜜蜂个体中提取核酸的两种不同方法的评估和比较

蜜蜂是研究行为生态学、行为遗传学和社会基因组学的优秀模型系统。基于核酸的分析可以在功能基因组学、疾病诊断、突变筛选和遗传育种方面进行广泛的研究。通过整合基因组变异、转录组谱和表观基因组信息，多层次的分析可以更全面地了解表型变异的原因。然而，一个限制是同时获得高质量 DNA 和 RNA 的样品制备程序，特别是从少量材料中，例如单个蜜蜂的组织。我们证明了从单个蜜蜂中双重提取 DNA 和 RNA 并使用两种不同类型的方法比较提取的核酸的质量和数量是可行的。从基于乙醇的提取物中提取的 DNA 和 RNA 的总产量更高，而以 ng/uL 为单位的总浓度差异最小。我们在这里描述了第一个经过验证的方法，用于从单个蜜蜂 (Apis mellifera) 中双重提取 DNA 和 RNA。