Achievement

Interdisciplinary questions central to our IGERT theme are: how do changes in gene expression result in changes in brain architecture, function and behavior, and how do behavioral modifications lead to changes in gene expression? Taking advantage of the already published honey bee genome, PI Robinson’s lab has published a series of papers on mapping genomic attributes to complex behaviors in honey bees have come out over the last year including: a new meta-analysis tool for analyzing brain transcriptome profiles (Ament et al. 2012 PNAS, doi:10.1073/pnas.1205283109), the identification of transcription factor that regulates gene expression and influences social behavior (Ament et al. 2012 PLoS Genetics, doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002596), and a gene expression study on the molecular basis for novelty seeking in relation to scouting behavior (Liang et al. 2012 Science, doi: 10.1126/science.1213962).