Journal Article

Comparative transcriptomics of social insect queen pheromones

Mikheyev, Alexander S., Helanterä, Heikki, Trontti, Kalevi, Holman, Luke

2019

Overview

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. Queen pheromones are used by eusocial insects to regulate all aspects of colony life. Here, Holman et al. compare the effects of queen pheromone on gene expression and splicing in four eusocial insect species, giving insight into the mechanism and evolution of division of reproductive labour.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 38 / 38/91 / 631/181/2469 / 631/208/199 / 631/553/2711 / Acetylation / Animals / Ants / Ants - physiology / Bees / Bees - physiology / Behavior, Animal - physiology / Biological Evolution / Biosynthesis / Division / Division of labor / Female / Gene expression / Gene Expression Profiling / Gene Expression Regulation - physiology / Genes / Humanities and Social Sciences / Insects / Labor / Lipids / multidisciplinary / Olfaction / Oogenesis / Organic chemistry / Pheromones / Pheromones - physiology / Queen pheromone / Reproduction - physiology / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Sequence Analysis, RNA / Social Behavior / Species / Splicing / Transcription / Transcriptome - physiology / Workers (insect caste)