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Testing the effect of paraquat exposure on genomic recombination rates in queens of the western honey bee, Apis mellifera

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Abstract

The rate of genomic recombination displays evolutionary plasticity and can even vary in response to environmental factors. The western honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) has an extremely high genomic recombination rate but the mechanistic basis for this genome-wide upregulation is not understood. Based on the hypothesis that meiotic recombination and DNA damage repair share common mechanisms in honey bees as in other organisms, we predicted that oxidative stress leads to an increase in recombination rate in honey bees. To test this prediction, we subjected honey bee queens to oxidative stress by paraquat injection and measured the rates of genomic recombination in select genome intervals of offspring produced before and after injection. The evaluation of 26 genome intervals in a total of over 1750 offspring of 11 queens by microsatellite genotyping revealed several significant effects but no overall evidence for a mechanistic link between oxidative stress and increased recombination was found. The results weaken the notion that DNA repair enzymes have a regulatory function in the high rate of meiotic recombination of honey bees, but they do not provide evidence against functional overlap between meiotic recombination and DNA damage repair in honey bees and more mechanistic studies are needed.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all members of the Social Insect Lab at UNCG for their encouragement and discussion. Financial support for this study was provided by a NIGMS grant to OR (R15GM102753) and the Army Research Office (W911NF1520045).

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The funder had not role in experimental design, performance, analysis, or interpretation of this study.

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  1. Kurt Langberg

    Present address: Department of Ophthalmology, University of Virginia, 415 Lane Rd. MR5 Building Room 3201, Charlottesville, VA, 22908, USA

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  1. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 321 McIver Street, Greensboro, NC, 27412, USA

    Kurt Langberg, Matthew Phillips & Olav Rueppell

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  1. Kurt Langberg
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Correspondence to Olav Rueppell.

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Langberg, K., Phillips, M. & Rueppell, O. Testing the effect of paraquat exposure on genomic recombination rates in queens of the western honey bee, Apis mellifera. Genetica 146, 171–178 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-018-0009-z

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