Estudo da diferenciação sexual de Melipona interrupta por análise proteômica

Abstract

Bees are social insects that live in organized colonies with differentiation of sex and caste. They have a great diversity. They represent around 6% of the total number of species. Native bees, which are popularly known as stingless bees and stingless bees are found in tropical regions, occurring in Brazil, mainly in the Amazon region where a significant number of species. Some studies have observed the presence of diploid males in bees, derived from fertilized eggs inbreeding, which led him to propose the existence of a complementary sex. This study has aim to identify specific proteins for the phases of queen, workers and male pupae from Melipona interrupta, for mass spectrometry. We identified 47 proteins. Of these, 35 proteins are common to the three conditions, four were detected only in male pupae (PM), 2 in pupal queen (PR) and 2 worker pupa (POP). Others are shared by at least two of the conditions, and 5 are common to PM and PR, 2 to PM and PO and 1 to PO and PR. Some proteins found are involved indirectly with the morphological differentiation. However, further studies should be conducted to better characterization of each protein and its interaction with the sexual differentiation pathways and caste. Key-words: stingless bee, shotgun, mass spectrometry, proteins