Comparison Of Learning And Memory Of Apis Cerana And Apis Mellifera And Analysis Of Related Molecular Mechanism Of Learning And Memory In Honeybee

The honeybee is an excellent model organism for research on learning and memoryamong invertebrates. Learning and memory in honeybees has intrigued neuroscientists andentomologists in the last few decades, but attention has focused almost solely on theWestern honeybee, Apis mellifera. In contrast, there have been few studies on learning andmemory in the Eastern honeybee Apis cerana. Here we report comparative behavioral dataof color and grating learning and memory for A. cerana and A. mellifera in China, gatheredusing a Y-maze apparatus. This study provided the first evidence of a learning and memorydifference between A. cerana and A. mellifera under controlled conditions.The changes in microRNA (miRNA) and mRNA following maze-based visual learningwere analyzed using next-generation small RNA sequencing and Solexa/lllumina DigitalGene Expression tag profiling (DGE). For small RNA sequencing,13,367,770and13,132,655clean reads from the trained and untrained groups were obtained, respectively.A total of40differentially expressed known miRNAs were detected between these twosamples, and all of them were up-regulated in the trained group compared to the untrainedgroup. For DGE,5,681,320and5939,855clean tags were detected from the trained anduntrained groups respectively. There were a total of388differentially expressed genesbetween these two samples, with45genes up-regulated and343genes down-regulated inthe trained group. The integrative analysis of miRNA and mRNA expression showed that,among the40differentially expressed known miRNAs and388differentially expressedgenes,60pairs miRNA/mRNA were identified as co-expressed. These results suggestedthat both microRNA and mRNA may play a pivotal role in the process of learning andmemory in honeybees. Our sequencing data provided comprehensive miRNA and geneexpression information for maze-based visual learning, which will facilitate understandingof the molecular mechanisms of honeybee learning and memory.In addition, the homologues of glutamate and serotonin receptor genes reported to berelated to learning and memory in other organisms were analyzed in the brains of newlyemerged Apis mellifera workers, nurses and foragers by means of Real-time quantitativePCR (qRT-PCR). Results indicated that some glutamate and serotonin receptor genes mayplay important roles in honeybee division of labor.