Comparative transcriptomics of social insect queen pheromones

Holman, Luke; Helanter�, Heikki; Trontti, Kalevi; Mikheyev, Alexander S.

Abstract

Queen pheromones are chemical signals that mediate reproductive division of labor in eusocial animals. Remarkably, queen pheromones are composed of identical or chemically similar compounds in some ants, wasps and bees, even though these taxa diverged >150MYA and evolved queens and workers independently. Here, we measure the transcriptomic consequences of experimental exposure to queen pheromones in workers from two ant and two bee species (genera: Lasius, Apis, Bombus), and test whether they are similar across species. Queen pheromone exposure affected transcription and splicing at many loci. Many genes responded consistently in multiple species, and the set of pheromone-sensitive genes was enriched for functions relating to lipid biosynthesis and transport, olfaction, production of cuticle, oogenesis, and histone (de)acetylation. Pheromone-sensitive genes tend to be evolutionarily ancient, positively selected, peripheral in the gene coexpression network, hypomethylated, and caste-specific in their expression. Our results reveal how queen pheromones achieve their effects, and suggest that ants and bees use similar genetic modules to achieve reproductive division of labor.

Citation

Holman, L., Helanterä, H., Trontti, K., & Mikheyev, A. S. (2019). Comparative transcriptomics of social insect queen pheromones. Nature Communications, 10, Article 1593 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09567-2

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 19, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 8, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019
• Deposit Date: Feb 17, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 22, 2021
• Journal: Nature Communications
• Electronic ISSN: 2041-1723
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Article Number: 1593 (2019)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09567-2
• Keywords: Gene expression, Regulatory networks, Social evolution
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2722834