QBI Neuroscience Seminar: DNA methylation and its role in honey bee memory formation
Event Details
- Date:
- Wednesday, 23 September 2015 - Wednesday, 23 September 2015
- Time:
- 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
- Room:
- QBI Level 7 Auditorium
- UQ Location:
- Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)
- URL:
- http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars
- Event category(s):
Event Contact
- Name:
- Ms Deirdre Wilson
- Phone:
- 3346 6300
- Email:
- d.wilson5@uq.edu.au
- Org. Unit:
- Queensland Brain Institute
Event Description
- Full Description:
- Stephanie Biergans,
Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland
Title: DNA methylation and its role in honey bee memory formation
Abstract:
Honey bees show an amazing learning capability ranging from 'simple' object - reward associations to complex forms of rule learning. Learning is an integral part of a bee behavior, especially when foraging for pollen and nectar, which requires them to remember food source location, quality and identity, as well as communicate this knowledge to other bees, using the waggle-dance. Both on the level of the hive and within each individual foraging behavior is strongly regulated. Since von Frischs first descriptions of honeybee behavior much has been revealed about the underlying ecology and brain physiology. Little is known however about molecular processes underlying behavioral plasticity and particularly memory formation in bees; especially the role of regulatory mechanisms of protein synthesis remain largely elusive. With the emergence of epigenetics as a field in its own right, bees gained much attention as a model organism. Specifically because of a feature they share with many eusocial insects: Bees form morphologically and behaviorally distinct castes (i.e. queens and workers), which are genetically identical. The main component, which does determine whether a bee larvae develops into a queen or a worker, is food. A fact which made bees a prime interest of epigenetic research. Indeed an epigenetic mechanism, DNA methylation, is involved in regulating caste development in bees. Castes in a bee hive are directly related to distinct behavioral phenotypes. Workers, in contrary to queens, for example show foraging behavior, in an age-dependent manner. This suggests a role of DNA methylation not only in development, but also in behavioral plasticity in bees. First behavioral evidence indeed suggests that stimulus-specific long-term memory formation and extinction are regulated by DNA methylation.
The aim of my thesis was to investigate the role of DNA methylation in honey bee memory formation in more detail. Specifically, I used learning paradigms, brain imaging and analysis of gene expression and DNA methylation patterns to answer the following questions:
What aspects of memory formation and extinction does DNA methylation regulate?
What network properties are regulated by DNA methylation after learning?
And what genes are targeted by the DNA methylation machinery after learning?
In my talk I will present the results of the last three years and discuss what we know so far about the role of DNA methylation in behavioral plasticity in bees.
Directions to UQ
- Google Map:
-
- Directions:
- St Lucia Campus | Gatton campus.
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