Honeybees Become Workers or Queens Depending on the Plant MicroRNAs in Their Diet (IMAGE)

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Honeybees Become Workers or Queens Depending on the Plant MicroRNAs in Their Diet

Caption

Working model for the cross-kingdom transfer of plant microRNAs in the regulation of honeybee development. For larvae that are destined to become queens, royal jelly is fed in copious amounts to drive the development of the royal phenotype. For worker-destined larvae, substantial quantities of plant microRNAs are absorbed when consuming beebread and pollen, which can negatively influence the development of the royal phenotype in honeybees by regulating multiple genes in caste differentiation pathways.

Credit

Drs. Xi Chen and Kegan Zhu

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