University of Leicester
Browse

The effects of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid on gene expression and DNA methylation in the buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris

Download (576.73 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2019-06-06, 08:46 authored by P Bebane, B Hunt, M Pegoraro, H Marshall, A Jones, E Rosato, E Mallon
Neonicotinoids are effective insecticides used on many important arable and horticultural crops. They are nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonists which disrupt the function of insect neurons and cause paralysis and death. In addition to direct mortality, there are numerous sublethal effects of low doses of neonicotinoids on bees. We hypothesize that some of these large array of effects could be a consequence of epigenetic changes in bees induced by neonicotinoids. We compared whole methylome (BS-seq) and RNA-seq libraries of the brains of buff-tailed bumblebee Bombus terrestris workers exposed to field-realistic doses of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid to libraries from control workers. We found numerous genes which show differential expression between neonicotinoid-treated bees and control bees, but no differentially methylated cytosines in any context. We found CpG methylation to be focused mainly in exons and associated with highly expressed genes. We discuss the implications of our results for future legislation.

Funding

EBM, BJH and MP were funded by NERC grant NE/N010019/1. PSAB was supported by a scholarship from the Human Capacity Development Program (Koya University - Iraq). HM was supported by a NERC CENTA DTP studentship. ARCJ was supported by a BBSRC MIBTP DTP studentship. This research used the ALICE High Performance Computing Facility at the University of Leicester.

History

Citation

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2019, 286 (1905)

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF LIFE SCIENCES/Biological Sciences/Genetics and Genome Biology

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Published in

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volume

286

Issue

1905

Publisher

The Royal Society

issn

0962-8452

Acceptance date

2019-05-28

Copyright date

2019

Available date

2019-06-19

Notes

Supplementary figures are availible in the supplementary figures file. Supplementary data is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6796802. All sequencing data related to this project can be found under NCBI BioProject PRJNA524132.;The file associated with this record is under embargo until publication, in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. The full text may be available through the publisher links provided above.

Language

en

Usage metrics

    University of Leicester Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC