Evaluation of functional categories of summer and winter bee differentially expressed genes
Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analyses showed that several biological processes are differentially regulated between each group (Tables S9-14). The most significantly enriched and specific terms for each comparison are displayed in Tables 3-4.
In fat body tissues, DEGs between nurses and foragers were enriched for GO terms associated with the regulation of dendrite development and morphogenesis, mRNA processing, and feeding behavior. DEGs between winter bees and foragers were enriched for GO terms associated with adult feeding behavior, thermotaxis, and neuromuscular junction development, in addition to transcriptional regulatory processes, including mRNA catabolism and poly(A) tail shortening. In contrast, DEGs between winter bees and nurses were enriched for terms associated with lumen formation of open tracheal systems, actin filament capping, muscle filament assembly, and germarium-derived oocyte differentiation and fate determination (Table 3).
In flight muscles, DEGs between nurses and foragers were enriched for GO terms associated with regulation of humoral immune response, somatic muscle development, RNA stability, and membrane protein organization. DEGs between winter bees and foragers were enriched for GO terms associated with protein maturation by iron-sulfur cluster transfer, regulation of rhodopsin mediated signaling pathway, and regulation of compound eye retinal cell death. DEGs between winter bees and nurses were enriched for GO terms associated with several processes related to morphological development, protein localization, post-translational protein modifications, and immune system function (Table 4).