Honeybees display a fascinating social behavior. The structural basis for this behavior, which made the bee a model organism for the study of communication, learning and memory formation, is the tiny insect brain. Neurons of the brain communicate via messenger molecules. Among these molecules, neuropeptides represent the structurally most‐diverse group and occupy a high hierarchic position in the modulation of behavior. A recent analysis of the honeybee genome revealed a considerable number of predicted (200) and confirmed (100) neuropeptides in this (...) insect.1 Is this quantity merely the result of advanced mass spectrometric techniques and bioinformatic tools or does it reflect the expression of more of these important messenger molecules, more than known from other insects studied so far? Our analysis of the data suggests that the social behavior is by no means correlated with a specific increase in the number of neuropeptides. Indeed, the honeybee genome is likely to contain fewer neuropeptide genes, neuropeptide paralogues and neuropeptide receptor genes than the solitary fruitfly Drosophila. BioEssays 29:416–421, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Cells in the basal metazoan phylum Cnidaria are characterized by remarkable plasticity in their differentiation capacity. The mechanism controlling asymmetric cell divisions is not understood in cnidarians or in any other animal group. PIWI proteins recently have been shown to be involved in maintaining the self‐renewal capacity of stem cells in organisms as diverse as ciliates, flies, worms and mammals. Seipel et al.1 find that, in the cnidarian Podocoryne carnea, the Piwi homolog Cniwi is transcriptionally upregulated when the polyp generates (...) buds, which will develop into medusae. Since transdifferentiation of striated muscle cells to smooth muscle cells also activated Cniwi expression, Cniwi appears to play a crucial role in differentiation events. The discovery should facilitate elucidation of the poorly understood factors that control asymmetric cell divisions at the beginning of animal evolution. BioEssays 26:929–931, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)