Allatotropin, leucokinin and AKH in honey bees and other Hymenoptera

In the honey bee no allatotropin gene has been found, even though allatotropin stimulates the synthesis of juvenile hormone in this species. We report here that honey bees and other Hymenoptera do have a typical allatotropin gene, although the peptides predicted have a somewhat different structure from that of other insect allatotropins. Polyclonal antisera to honey bee allatotropin reacted with material in the neurohemal organs of the segmental nerves of abdominal ganglia. We were unable to find the allatotropin peptide using mass spectrometry in extracts from these tissues. Thus the expression of this gene in honey bees is less important than in other insect species. We also characterized the leucokinin gene which similarly appears to be very weakly expressed in worker honey bees. Unlike the allatotropin gene, which is conserved within Hymenoptera, the leucokinin gene is much more variable in structure and was not found in ants nor the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis. The absence of significant expression of adipokinetic hormone (AKH) in the honey bee may be due to the existence of a second TATA box in the promotor region of the gene, which explains the production of an mRNA encoding a putative peptide precursor from which no AKH should be released. Such a second TATA box was not found in other Hymenoptera, and may therefore be specific for the two Apis species. It is suggested that functional disintegration of this important metabolic gene became possible in Apis because of the highly evolved social nature of the species.