Honey bees are an
established animal model for studying learning and memory related behaviors. In
recent years, honey bees have become more common as a model for investigations
of molecular biology, including gene expression. Honey bees have been used to
extrapolate genetic functions found in other invertebrates, such as Drosophilamelanogaster. The honey bee
model has also provided a means for isolating novel genes, including non-coding
microRNA fragments. Integrating the study of learning and memory with molecular
genetics, the present work examines the effect of learning acquisition and
memory consolidation in free-choice paradigms
on the expression of a suite of genes of interest. Results suggest that
short-term learning acquisition causes differential expression of microRNA
fragments, while memory consolidation
differentially affects the expression of the serine/threonine protein
kinase gene in honey bees. These results corroborate previous findings
suggesting the importance of protein kinases in the formation of long term
memory, and suggest that microRNA may play a large role in regulation of
cytoskeletal scaffolding proteins.
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