Morphological and genomic shifts in mole-rat queens increase fecundity but reduce skeletal integrity
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PROVIDER: PRJNA639991 | ENA |
REPOSITORIES: ENA
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Project description:We sequenced polyA-selected RNA from bone marrow derived cells from 47 bone samples collected from 16 captive, adult female Damaraland mole-rats (Fukomys damarensis). The 16 females were experimentally manipulated to either remain as nonbreeders (either as helpers or solitaires) or become breeders, and breeding status was maintained for over 1 year prior to tissue collection and cell culture. A subset of cultured cells were treated for 24 hours with 10 nM estradiol prior to sample collection.
2021-04-28 | GSE152659 | GEO
Project description:In some mammals and many social insects, highly cooperative societies are characterized by reproductive division of labor, in which breeders and nonbreeders become behaviorally and morphologically distinct. While differences in behavior and growth between breeders and nonbreeders have been extensively described, little is known of their molecular underpinnings. Here, we investigate the consequences of breeding for skeletal morphology and gene regulation in highly cooperative Damaraland mole-rats. By experimentally assigning breeding 'queen' status versus nonbreeder status to age-matched littermates, we confirm that queens experience vertebral growth that likely confers advantages to fecundity. However, they also upregulate bone resorption pathways and show reductions in femoral mass, which predicts increased vulnerability to fracture. Together, our results show that, as in eusocial insects, reproductive division of labor in mole-rats leads to gene regulatory rewiring and extensive morphological plasticity. However, in mole-rats, concentrated reproduction is also accompanied by costs to bone strength.
| S-EPMC8104968 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Senescence is manifested by an increase in oxidative stress and a decline in biological functions with age. In most organisms, body maintenance is traded-off with reproduction. The negative relationship between longevity and fecundity is also evident on the molecular level, yet the proximate mechanisms remain poorly understood. Apparently by-passing this trade-off, social insect queens are both extremely long-lived (up to 30 years in some ants) and highly fecund compared to workers. Here, we study changes in gene expression with age and fecundity in queens to determine how the trade-off between those two traits is reshaped. We analyse tissue-specific gene expression in young founding queens and old, highly fecund queens of the ant Temnothorax rugatulus. More genes altered their expression with age in the fat body than in the brain. Despite strong differences in ovary development, few fecundity genes were differentially expressed. However, many longevity genes involved in well-known pathways or lifespan-associated biological processes changed their expression with age indicating that multiple longevity mechanisms are activated successively throughout a queens’ life. Young queens invested in immunity (i.e. activation of the Toll signalling pathway) and resistance against environmental and physiological stress associated with the founding phase (i.e. down regulation of the TOR pathway), while established older queens up-regulate anti-aging mechanisms (i.e. up-regulation of catalase, superoxide dismutase, heat shock 70 kDa proteins). Finally, we identified a number of candidate genes and pathways, potentially involved in reshaping the fertility-longevity trade-off in social insects, shedding light on how this is achieved on a proximate level.
2018-03-06 | GSE111415 | GEO
Project description:Queens of social insects make all mate-choice decisions on a single day, except in honeybees whose queens can conduct mating flights for several days even when already inseminated by a number of drones. Honeybees therefore appear to have a unique, evolutionarily derived form of sexual conflict: a queen’s decision to pursue risky additional mating flights is driven by later-life fitness gains from genetically more diverse worker-offspring but reduces paternity shares of the drones she already mated with. We used artificial insemination, RNA-sequencing and electroretinography to show that seminal fluid induces a decline in queen vision by perturbing the phototransduction pathway within 24-48 hours. Follow up field trials revealed that queens receiving seminal fluid flew two days earlier than sister queens inseminated with saline, and failed more often to return. These findings are consistent with seminal fluid components manipulating queen eyesight to reduce queen promiscuity across mating flights.
2019-09-10 | GSE127185 | GEO
Project description:During the nest-founding phase of the bumble bee colony cycle, queens undergo striking changes in maternal care behavior. Early in the founding phase, prior to the emergence of workers in the nest, queens are reproductive and also provision and feed their offspring. However, later in the founding phase, queens cease feeding offspring and become specialized on reproduction. This transition is synchronized with the emergence of workers in the colony, who assume the task of feeding their siblings. Using a social manipulation experiment, we tested the hypothesis that workers socially regulate the transition from feeding brood to specialization on reproduction in nest-founding bumble bee queens. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that early-stage queens with workers prematurely added to their nests reduce their brood-feeding behavior and increase egg-laying, and likewise, late-stage queens increase their brood-feeding behavior and decrease egg-laying when workers are removed from their nests. Further, brood-feeding and egg-laying behavior were negatively correlated in these queens. We used an Agilent brain EST-based microarray to explore a second hypothesis, that workers alter brain gene expression in nest-founding queens. We found evidence that brain gene expression in nest-founding queens is altered by the presence of workers, with the effect much stronger in late-stage founding queens. Additionally, expression levels of some genes were correlated with quantitative differences in brood-feeding and egg-laying behavior. This study provides new insights into how the transition from feeding brood to specialization on reproduction in bumble bee queens is regulated during the nest initiation phase of the colony cycle.
2014-06-21 | E-MTAB-1855 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Deep sequencing of mRNA from naked mole rat Analysis of ploy(A)+ RNA of different specimens: brain, kidney, liver from new born , 4 years old , 20 years old and 4 years old hypoxia-exposed naked mole rat
2011-10-12 | E-GEOD-30337 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Honey bee queens undergo dramatic behavioral (e.g., reduced sexual receptivity), physiological (e.g., ovary activation, ovulation, and modulation of pheromone production) and molecular changes after they complete mating. To elucidate how queen post-mating changes are influenced by seminal fluid, a non-spermatozoa-containing component of semen, we injected queens with semen or seminal fluid alone. We assessed queen sexual receptivity, ovary development, worker retinue response (which is influenced by queen pheromone production), and transcriptional changes in queen abdominal fat body and brain tissues. Injection with either seminal fluid or semen resulted in decreased sexual receptivity, increased attractiveness of queens to workers, and altered expression of several genes that are also regulated in naturally mated queens. The post-mating and transcriptional changes of queens receiving seminal fluid were not significantly different from queens treated with seminal fluid, suggesting that components in seminal fluid, such as seminal fluid proteins, are largely responsible for stimulating post-mating changes in queens.
2020-07-27 | GSE145395 | GEO
Project description:Changes in gene regulation have long been though to underlie most phenotypic differences between species. Subterranean rodents, and in particular the naked mole-rat (NMR), have attracted substantial attention due to their proposed phenotypic adaptations, which include hypoxia tolerance, metabolic changes and cancer resistance. However, it is largely unknown what regulatory changes may associate with these phenotypic traits, and whether these are unique to the NMR, the mole-rat clade or also present in other mammals. Here, we undertook a comparative genomics approach to identify genome-wide promoter and enhancer regions harbouring epigenomic hallmarks of regulatory activity, in heart and liver from two mole-rat species (NMR and DMR) and two rodent outgroups. To identify promoters and enhancers displaying robust shifts in regulatory activity in the mole-rat clade, we adapted and applied a phylogenetic modeling approach to quantitatively compare epigenomic signals at orthologous locations, while accounting for phylogenetic distance and inter-species variation. This method identified thousands of orthologous promoter and enhancer regions with increased activity in ancestral or single-species mole-rat branches, as well as hundreds of promoters and enhancers with reduced activity in mole-rats versus other rodents. These elements underlie both shared tissue-specific changes in gene regulation associated with mole-rat evolution, which include metabolic and functional adaptations in heart and liver. Moreover, by comparing mole-rat specific changes in promoters and enhancers between ancestral and single-species branches, our data revealed a number of candidate pathways with stepwise regulatory changes during mole-rat evolution. Lastly, we analysed the genomic properties of non-alignable promoters and enhancers in mole-rats, and report (i) their overlap with specific repetitive elements and transcription factor binding sites; and (ii) their association with metabolic gene functions. On the whole, these comparative analyses reveal mole-rat specific epigenomic changes across orthologous and non-mappable promoters and enhancers - which inform previously reported mole-rat adaptations from a gene regulation perspective.
2023-08-21 | GSE222972 | GEO
Project description:Will be added/updated once the manuscript is finalized. Cardiocondyla obscurior queens. Three treatments: virgin queens, queens mated by real males, queens sham-mated (by sterile males). Queens collected 1 week and 8 week after mating. seven loops for queens collected 1 week after mating; nine loops for queens collected 8 weeks after mating. Five direct comparisons (with dye-swaps... so 10 arrays) were done of between 1 week and 8 week samples of queens mated by real males. Each sample is RNA from two queens (from different colonies). Samples were hybridized against Solenopsis invicta microarrays (signal was detectable for most clones!)
2013-10-26 | E-GEOD-24953 | biostudies-arrayexpress