The Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium is an international collaborative group of

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, ...

scientists, scientific organisations and universities trying to decipher the

genome sequence A genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding genes, other functional regions of the genome such as ...

s of the honey bee (''

Apis mellifera The western honey bee or European honey bee (''Apis mellifera'') is the most common of the 7–12 species of honey bees worldwide. The genus name ''Apis'' is Latin for 'bee', and ''mellifera'' is the Latin for 'honey-bearing' or 'honey-carrying', ...

''). It was formed in 2001 by American scientists. In the US, the project is funded by the

National Human Genome Research Institute The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) is an institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland. NHGRI began as the Office of Human Genome Research in The Office of the Director in 1988. This Office transi ...

(a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

Sociogenomics Sociogenomics, also known as social genomics, is the field of research that examines why and how different social factors and processes (e.g., social stress, conflict, isolation, attachment, etc.) affect the activity of the genome. Social genomics ...

Initiative, and various

beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees, a profession known as beekeeping. The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees in beehives, boxes, or other receptacles. The beekeeper does not control the creatures. The beekeeper ow ...

s association and the bee industry. First scientific findings show that the honey bee genome may have evolved more slowly than the genomes of the fruit fly and malaria mosquito. The bee genome contains versions of some important mammalian genes. The complete genome of ''Apis mellifera'' has been sequenced and consists of 10,000 genes with approximately 236 million

base pair A base pair (bp) is a fundamental unit of double-stranded nucleic acids consisting of two nucleobases bound to each other by hydrogen bonds. They form the building blocks of the DNA double helix and contribute to the folded structure of both DNA ...

s. The size of the genome is a tenth of the

human genome The human genome is a complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans, encoded as the DNA within each of the 23 distinct chromosomes in the cell nucleus. A small DNA molecule is found within individual Mitochondrial DNA, mitochondria. These ar ...

. The Western honey bee gene sequence showed 163 chemical receptors for smell but only 10 for

taste The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste. Taste is the perception stimulated when a substance in the mouth biochemistry, reacts chemically with taste receptor cells l ...

. Besides the discovery of new genes for the use of pollen and nectar, researchers found that, in comparison with other insects, ''Apis mellifera'' has fewer genes for immunity, detoxification and the development of the cuticula. The population genetic analysis showed Africa as the origin and hypothesized that the spread into Europe happened in at least two independent waves. Data from the scientific collaboration was made available on BeeBase led by

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

. BeeSpace led by the University of Illinois{{Cite web , url=http://www.beespace.uiuc.edu/ , title=BeeSpace , access-date=2006-11-24 , archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160522222115/http://www.beespace.uiuc.edu/ , archive-date=2016-05-22 , url-status=dead is an effort to complete a web navigable catalog of related information.

Sources

Beekeeping organizations Genomics Genome projects Beekeeping in the United States Agricultural organizations based in the United States

See also

Sources