How can ant queens live so long? Genes of multiple longevity pathways change expression with age in the ant Temnothorax rugatulus
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ABSTRACT:
PROVIDER: PRJNA436959 | ENA |
REPOSITORIES: ENA
Dataset's files
| Action | DRS | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SRR6806690_1.fastq.gz | Fastqsanger.gz | |||
| SRR6806690_2.fastq.gz | Fastqsanger.gz | |||
| SRR6806700_1.fastq.gz | Fastqsanger.gz | |||
| SRR6806700_2.fastq.gz | Fastqsanger.gz | |||
| SRR6806710_1.fastq.gz | Fastqsanger.gz |
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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.
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Project description:In species with social hierarchies, the death of dominant individuals typically upheaves the social hierarchy and provides an opportunity for subordinate individuals to become reproductives. Such a phenomenon occurs in the monogyne form of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, where colonies typically contain a single wingless reproductive queen, thousands of workers and hundreds of winged non-reproductive virgin queens. Upon the death of the mother queen, many virgin queens shed their wings and initiate reproductive development instead of departing on a mating flight. Workers progressively execute almost all of them over the following weeks. To identify the molecular changes that occur in virgin queens as they perceive the loss of their mother queen and begin to compete for reproductive dominance, we collected virgin queens before the loss of their mother queen, six hours after orphaning and 24 hours after orphaning. Their RNA was extracted and hybridized against microarrays to examine the expression levels of approximately 10,000 genes. We identified 297 genes that were consistently differentially expressed after orphaning. These include genes that are putatively involved in the signaling and onset of reproductive development, as well as genes underlying major physiological changes in the young queens.
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Project description:In many animals living in groups the reproductivestatus of individuals is determined by their social status. In specieswith social hierarchies, the death of dominant individuals typicallyupheaves the social hierarchy and provides an opportunity for subordinateindividuals to improve their social status. Such a phenomenon occursin the monogyne form of the fire ant\emph{, Solenopsis invicta, }wherecolonies typically contain a single wingless reproductive queen, thousandsof workers and hundreds of winged non-reproductive virgin queens.Upon the death of the mother queen, many virgin queens shed theirwings and initiate reproductive development instead of departing ona mating flight. Workers progressively execute almost all of themover the following weeks. The workers base their collective decisionon pheromonal cues associated with the onset of reproductive developmentof the virgin queens which occurs after orphaning. To examine the factors that determine which virgin queens are executed and which survive, we set up artificial competitions between queens from different colonies. Using microarrays, we found that queens from winning colonies showed higher mitochondrial as well as organ development activities 24 hours after orphaning than did queens from colonies that lost the competitions. Furthermore, queens from colonies where queens shed their wings faster after orphaning were more likely to survive competitions. Finally, higher wing shedding speed is linked to higher mitochondrial activity.
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Project description:In the fire ant Solenopsis invicta, a colony queen number is determined by the founding queen's genotypes at the 13 Mb supergene with the non-recombining variants SB and Sb. Single-queen colonies are always headed by SB/SB queens while multiple-queens colonies are always headed by SB/Sb queens. The two variants of the supergene, SB and Sb are completely linked to the two alleles (B and b) of the gene Gp-9. SB/SB and SB/Sb queens differ in many physiological traits including their maturation rate and odor. To explain why SB/SB and SB/Sb queens have different odors, and why SB/SB virgins mature faster and accumulate more fat, we measured expression of ~6000 genes in virgin queens 1 and 11 days after eclosion and in reproductive queens. Keywords: fire ants, Solenopsis invicta, Supergene, queen, Gp-9, social form, maturation, fat storage, queen odor, cuticular hydrocarbon, worker discrimination, monogyne, polygyne, transposon, chemical signaling
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Project description:In species with social hierarchies, the death of dominant individuals typically upheaves the social hierarchy and provides an opportunity for subordinate individuals to become reproductives. Such a phenomenon occurs in the monogyne form of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, where colonies typically contain a single wingless reproductive queen, thousands of workers and hundreds of winged non-reproductive virgin queens. Upon the death of the mother queen, many virgin queens shed their wings and initiate reproductive development instead of departing on a mating flight. Workers progressively execute almost all of them over the following weeks. To identify the molecular changes that occur in virgin queens as they perceive the loss of their mother queen and begin to compete for reproductive dominance, we collected virgin queens before the loss of their mother queen, six hours after orphaning and 24 hours after orphaning. Their RNA was extracted and hybridized against microarrays to examine the expression levels of approximately 10,000 genes. We identified 297 genes that were consistently differentially expressed after orphaning. These include genes that are putatively involved in the signaling and onset of reproductive development, as well as genes underlying major physiological changes in the young queens. 3 samples: 0h, 6h, 24; five queens pooled per samples; each replicate loop of 3 samples was taken from an independent colony; 8 biological replicates (colonies) used. Hybridization according to a Dye-balanced loop design (no technical replication)
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Project description:A host of animals build architectural constructions. Such constructions frequently vary with environmental and individual/colony conditions, and their architecture directly influences behavior and fitness. The nests of ant colonies drive and enable many of their collective behaviors, and as such are part of their 'extended phenotype'. Since ant colonies have been recently shown to differ in behavior and life history strategy, we ask whether colonies differ in another trait: the architecture of the constructions they create. We allowed Temnothorax rugatulus rock ants, who create nests by building walls within narrow rock gaps, to repeatedly build nest walls in a fixed crevice but under two environmental conditions. We find that colonies consistently differ in their architecture across environments and over nest building events. Colony identity explained 12-40% of the variation in nest architecture, while colony properties and environmental conditions explained 5-20%, as indicated by the condition and marginal R2 values. When their nest boxes were covered, which produced higher humidity and lower airflow, colonies built thicker, longer, and heavier walls. Colonies also built more robust walls when they had more brood, suggesting a protective function of wall thickness. This is, to our knowledge, the first study to explicitly investigate the repeatability of nestbuilding behavior in a controlled environment. Our results suggest that colonies may face tradeoffs, perhaps between factors such as active vs. passive nest defense, and that selection may act on individual construction rules as a mechanisms to mediate colony-level behavior.
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