Figures
Behavioral genes impact metabolic physiology.
A newborn honey bee worker (Apis mellifera) breaks free from her nursery chamber in the colony nest. A few weeks later, she will leave the hive in search of nectar and pollen to feed her siblings and mother queen. The genes vitellogenin and ultraspiracle, which regulate the bees' behavioral transition to foraging tasks, also coordinate their carbohydrate metabolism, blood sugar levels, sweet taste, and several metabolic genes in adipose tissue. When vitellogenin and ultraspiracle are simultaneously suppressed in adipose cells, the bees develop a metabolic syndrome similar to type 1 diabetes. See Wang et al.
Image Credit: Christofer Bang (Arizona State University).
Citation: (2012) PLoS Genetics Issue Image | Vol. 8(6) June 2012. PLoS Genet 8(6): ev08.i06. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pgen.v08.i06
Published: June 28, 2012
Copyright: © 2012 Bang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
A newborn honey bee worker (Apis mellifera) breaks free from her nursery chamber in the colony nest. A few weeks later, she will leave the hive in search of nectar and pollen to feed her siblings and mother queen. The genes vitellogenin and ultraspiracle, which regulate the bees' behavioral transition to foraging tasks, also coordinate their carbohydrate metabolism, blood sugar levels, sweet taste, and several metabolic genes in adipose tissue. When vitellogenin and ultraspiracle are simultaneously suppressed in adipose cells, the bees develop a metabolic syndrome similar to type 1 diabetes. See Wang et al.
Image Credit: Christofer Bang (Arizona State University).