Cooperating with Dr Jia Guifang (Peking University), Dr Wu Liming (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences) and Dr Xue Xiaofeng (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences), Li Yan has published the paper titled RNA m6A Modification Functions in Larval Development and Caste Differentiation in Honeybee (Apis mellifera) in Cell Reports as a co-first author. Congratulations!

Genetically identical female honeybee larvae with different diets develop into sterile workers or fertile queens. It remains unknown whether the reversible RNA N6 -methyladenosine (m6A) mark functionally impact this “caste differentiation”. In this article, they profile the transcriptome-wide m6A methylome of honeybee queen and worker larvae at three instar stages and discover that m6A methylation dynamics are altered by differential feeding, demonstrating that m6A functionally impacts caste differentiation and larval development, yet it does not exclude potential contributions from other factors.

(Written by Hongxuan Chen.)