Hijacking time: How Ophiocordyceps fungi could be using ant host clocks to manipulate behavior.

ABSTRACT: Ophiocordyceps fungi manipulate ant behaviour as a transmission strategy. Conspicuous changes in the daily timing of disease phenotypes suggest that Ophiocordyceps and other manipulators could be hijacking the host clock. We discuss the available data that support the notion that Ophiocordyceps fungi could be hijacking ant host clocks and consider how altering daily behavioural rhythms could benefit the fungal infection cycle. By reviewing time-course transcriptomics data for the parasite and the host, we argue that Ophiocordyceps has a light-entrainable clock that might drive daily expression of candidate manipulation genes. Moreover, ant rhythms are seemingly highly plastic and involved in behavioural division of labour, which could make them susceptible to parasite hijacking. To provisi

SUBMITTER: de Bekker C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9287076 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature