The caste- and age-specific expression signature of honeybee heat shock genes shows an alternative splicing-dependent regulation of Hsp90

I report the investigation of the age- and caste-specific expression patterns of eight genes involved in protein maintenance and repair in wing muscle tissue of the honeybee Apis mellifera. mRNA levels of seven heat shock genes and the protein repair gene pcmt (encoding l-isoaspartyl-O-methyltransferase) were measured in a comparative study of queens and ageing workers. Two hsp90 orthologs, transcribed from the same locus, showed different age- and caste-dependent expression patterns suggesting an alternative splicing-dependent regulatory mechanism. One transcript showed decreasing expression levels with worker age and four times higher levels in queens than workers on average, while the other variant had much higher and even expression levels. An hsp22-like gene was sevenfold upregulated in workers from the newly emerged-stage and showed an age-dependent decreasing slope for the subsequent stages. Honeybee ageing seems therefore not to be accompanied by increase in the heat shock response at the level of gene expression. The method used provides very sensitive measurements of a limited number of genes, and this study is one of the first of the regulation of expression of protein protection and repair genes during aging, performed in an un-manipulated model organisms living in a natural environment.