Transcriptomic basis and evolution of the ant nurse-larval social interactome.

ABSTRACT: Development is often strongly regulated by interactions among close relatives, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. In eusocial insects, interactions between caregiving worker nurses and larvae regulate larval development and resultant adult phenotypes. Here, we begin to characterize the social interactome regulating ant larval development by collecting and sequencing the transcriptomes of interacting nurses and larvae across time. We find that the majority of nurse and larval transcriptomes exhibit parallel expression dynamics across larval development. We leverage this widespread nurse-larva gene co-expression to infer putative social gene regulatory networks acting between nurses and larvae. Genes with the strongest inferred social effects tend to be peripheral e

SUBMITTER: Warner MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6544314 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature