The Pathway to a Queen

A report in Science titled Nutritional Control of Reproductive Status in Honeybees via DNA Methylation by R. Kucharski, J. Maleszka, S. Foret and R. Maleszka, points out that the two forms of adult female honeybees (workers and queens) were once genetically identical larvae. The feeding of royal jelly induces the development of a queen. Researchers were able to show that silencing the expression of DNA methyltransferase Dnmt3 can lead to the development of queens. Results suggest, according to the authors, that developmental fates are linked to alterations of epigenetic information stored through DNA methylation by means of nutritional input.