Fig. 8: Changes in lipid profiles in fat bodies during adult queen maturation.

a Hierarchical clustering heatmap analysis of triglycerides (TG, orange), diglycerides (DG, green), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE, black), phosphatidylcholine (PC, gray), lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC, yellow), sphingomyelin (SM, blue) lipids in fat body of different stage of the queen (QT0, QT2, and QT4) performed in MetaboAnalyst 4.0. Individual lipids are shown per row and mean of lipid amount of each stage displayed in columns, according to cluster analysis (Euclidean distance and Ward’s algorithm). The color gradient, ranging from dark blue through white to dark red, represents low, middle, and high abundance of a given lipid. b Percentages (%) of saturated fatty acids (SFA), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) of total FA in fat bodies of different queen maturation stages (QT0, QT2, QT4). Ternary graph showing the percentages of SFA (orange), MUFA (black), and PUFA (blue). The table below shows the averages of MUFA, SFA, and PUFA for each stage. Permutational MANOVA demonstrated that SFA/MUFA/PUFA proportions in fat bodies of QT2 and QT4 were significantly different relative to QT0 (permutational MANOVA, P value = 0.012). c Box plot illustrating the peroxidation index of fat bodies of different queen maturation stages (QT0, QT2, and QT4). A box consists of upper and lower hinges and a center line corresponding to the 25th percentile, the 75th percentile, and the median, respectively. Rhombuses represent the averages. Different letters indicate significantly different values according to a Kruskal–Wallis test followed by pairwise Dunn tests (P values <0.05). The number of replicates per group is provided in Supplementary Table 1.