Trade-offs between sperm viability and immune protein expression in honey bee queens (Apis mellifera)
Honey bee queens store and use sperm for years after mating, but doing so may require a dampened immune response to keep the sperm viable. Alison McAfee et al. tested this hypothesis using mass spectrometry-based proteomics in queens with high and low sperm quantity and quality and found that lower...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nature Portfolio
2021-01-01
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| Series: | Communications Biology |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01586-w |
| Summary: | Honey bee queens store and use sperm for years after mating, but doing so may require a dampened immune response to keep the sperm viable. Alison McAfee et al. tested this hypothesis using mass spectrometry-based proteomics in queens with high and low sperm quantity and quality and found that lower measures of fertility correlated with high levels of the immune effector lysozyme, consistent with a trade-off between immunity and fertility. |
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| ISSN: | 2399-3642 |