Polymorphism of five exons of the vtg gene Apis cerana in populations of Russia, South Korea and Vietnam

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Abstract

The best-known kitchen modules of the Apidae are the honey bees Apis mellifera and the wax bee Apis cerana. Compared to the honey bee, A. cerana is somewhat smaller in size, although it lives with it. The wax bee is native to temperate and tropical Asia, ranging from Afghanistan to Korea and Japan, north to the Himalayan foothills, as well as eastern Russia and south through Indonesia. The learning of bees to a changing environment is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology and is critical to protecting species in the face of climate change. In this method, five exons (from 3 to 7) of the vitellogenin gene vtg were sequenced to study the taxonomic relationships of individual populations and subspecies of A. cerana. Our detailed studies of the defensin 1 and 2 genes (def1 and def2) revealed the peculiarity of the structure of A. cerana in Vietnam, probably due to the geographical location of this direction. Currently, we confirm this assumption based on the analysis of the polymorphism of the vtg gene , which encodes a protein that implements the genetic control of immunity, oogenesis and lifespan. conservation within the protein may have selective significance for local populations. The vtg gene also contributes to the adaptation of bees to a cold climate. It is believed that the survival of long-lived representatives of various bee species, among other things, is associated with the development of the ability to accumulate vitellogenin, which can determine the differences in the stages of proteins in bees living in different conditions.

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About the authors

A. K. Kinzikeev

Ufa Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru

Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics

Russian Federation, Ufa, 450054

R. A. Ilyasov

Koltsov Institute of Developmental Biology, the Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119334

D. V. Boguslavsky

Koltsov Institute of Developmental Biology, the Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119334

A. Yu. Ilyasova

Koltsov Institute of Developmental Biology, the Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119334

L. R. Gaifullina

Ufa Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru

Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics

Russian Federation, Ufa, 450054

V. N. Sattarov

Bashkir State Pedagogical University named after M. Akmully

Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru
Russian Federation, Ufa, 450077

E. S. Saltykova

Ufa Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: kinzikeev@bk.ru

Institute of Biochemistry and Genetics

Russian Federation, Ufa, 450054

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. A. cerana bee sampling points (1–14) in Russia, South Korea and Vietnam. Details of bee sampling locations are presented in Table 1.

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3. Fig. 2. Frequency of occurrence of polymorphic nucleotide variants in the sequences of exons 3–7 of the vtg gene in the studied Apis cerana samples. Color coding: blue – South Korea, red – Vietnam, green – Russia. Nucleotide numbering is based on the reference sequence of the vtg gene (GenBank ID: NM_001328484.1). The first three characters before the hyphen indicate the exon number, the numbers indicate the nucleotide number, the letters in brackets indicate the nucleotide substitution, and the last letter represents the reference sequence.

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4. Fig. 3. Cladistic analysis of variability of nucleotide sequences of exons 3–7 of the vtg gene in Apis cerana. The sample label (see Table 1) and the name of the geographic point of collection are indicated. The Apis mellifera sample (IT1 isolate of the vitellogenin vtg gene) was used as a reference outgroup; exons 3–5 from GenBank under numbers MH755772, MH755807, MH755842, MH755877, and MH755912.

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