Fig. 3: Conserved transcriptional responses in Bombus terrestris workers and queens to insemination.
From: Unexpected worker mating and colony-founding in a superorganism
a–c Scatterplots displaying first and second principal components from a PCA performed on variance-stabilization transformed gene level counts revealing caste-specific gene expression profiles in gene expression profiles of reproductive tissues, including spermatheca, vagina and median oviduct, between: (a) the castes (red = queen; turquoise = worker); and (b) insemination status (blue = unfertilized (control) bees; pale blue = inseminated bees). In comparison, no clear separation of samples was identified based on days post-insemination (c: black dot = two days post-insemination; grey dot = four days post-insemination; and white dot = eight days post-insemination). d, e Differential expression analysis revealed similarities between queens and workers in terms of response to insemination. For both (d) workers and (e) queens, insemination resulted in general patterns of elevated gene expression (Likelihood Ratio Test: Benjamini-Hochberg adjusted P (padj) <0.05) compared to control bees (orange dots = elevated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) compared to control; blue dots = reduced DEGs compared to control; black dashed vertical lines indicate log2 fold change (log2FC) thresholds for elevated (log2FC = 1) and reduced (log2FC = −1) gene expression. f, g Euler plot displaying overlap in DEGs shared by both queens and workers in response to artificial insemination while correlation analysis (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) revealed a significant positive correlation between log2FC values assigned to genes affected by insemination.
