Effects of immunostimulation on social behavior, chemical communication and genome-wide gene expression in honey bee workers (Apis mellifera)

Table 5 Comparisons of significantly regulated genes with previous studies

Gene list	# of significant transcripts	# of transcripts in common between studies	p-value (Fisher's Exact Test)
Evans et al. ([2006])	166	14	p < 0.0001
Navajas et al. ([2008])	22	2	p > 0.09
Alaux et al. ([2011])	3704	117	p < 0.0001

The 302 genes that were significantly regulated by immunostimulation in both colonies in our study were matched to 239 GB numbers and compared with the immune genes identified during annotation of the genome (Evans et al.,[2006]), and genes significantly regulated by Varroa parasitization of honey bees (Navajas et al.,[2008] and Alaux et al.,[2011]). A Fischer’s Exact Test was used to determine if this overlap was significant, assuming that all genes present in the background lists for the arrays were in common between studies. In order to ascertain overlap, only genes in previous studies that were present on our array platform were included.

ISSN: 1471-2164