Thursday, 3 August 2006
541

Microsatellite Analyses of Commercial Bumblebees

Isabel Mª Santorroman-Mendizabal1, Ana Roldan-Serrano1, and Jose M. Guerra-Sanz2. (1) R&D, Agrobio, S.L., Ctra. Nacional 340, Km. 419, La Mojonera, Spain, (2) CIFA La Mojonera (IFAPA- CICE) Junta de Andalucia, Autovia del Mediterraneo, sal. 420, La Mojonera, Spain

The bumblebee colonies which are bred for commercial purposes should differ genetically from the local populations, although the genetic population structure of genus Bombus is still scantily understood.

 

The principal objective of the present study was to apply the use of microsatellite analyses to study the commercial bumblebee’s populations in Almería (Spain) and their heredity. Here we present an advance of our results so far obtained.

 

We have selected the microsatellites as the DNA molecular markers for our study, for being simple to use and repetitive on their results (Aranguren-Méndez, J.A. et al. (2005). Archiv. Latin. Prod. Animal, 13 (18): 30-42). Microsatellites have been obtained from the genome of B. terrestris (Estoup, A. et al. (1993).  Nucleic Acids Res., 21: 1427-1431) and, by using them, the genetic differentiation of the populations of B. terrestris in Europe (Estoup, A. et al. (1996). Mol. Ecol., 5: 19-31) and in the Canary and Madeira Islands (Widmer, A. et al. (1998). Heredity, 81: 567-572) has been studied.

 

Bombus’s DNA was extracted with the kit dNeasy Tissue (Qiagen) and a selection of the microsatellites, designed for B. terrestris, was carried out depending on their grade of polymorphism (B118, B132 and B11). With each primer pair, individuals of different companies were analyzed by the PCR reaction and the obtained bands were quantified. The comparison of the results led us to conclude that there were individuals of the companies more similars among them than to the other companies. On the other hand, the results of the analysis of the pedigrees confirmed that the microsatellites B118, B132 and B11 match the simple codominant Mendelian allele’s pattern of heredity already described for other organisms.

 

 

This work was supported by a Research Contract between Agrobío, Ltd. & IFAPA (Junta de Andalucía).

 


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