Project description:We generated snRNA-Seq for olfactory sensory neurons from late stage pupae of the clonal raider ant to study the chemosensory gene expression during development.
Project description:This experiment aimed at determining the immediate (d1) transcriptional consequences of knockding down the corazonin receptor in the ant brain.
Project description:We performed bulk RNA-seq analysis of antennae from three notable pest ant species, Camponotus floridanus, Atta sexdens, and Atta cephalotes, in order to characterize caste-specific expression patterns of odorant receptor genes.
Project description:Mass spectrometry imaging is a powerful analytical technique for detecting and determining spatial distributions of molecules within a sample. Typically, mass spectrometry imaging is limited to the analysis of thin tissue sections taken from the middle of a sample. In this work, we present a mass spectrometry imaging method for the detection of compounds produced by bacteria on the outside surface of ant exoskeletons in response to pathogen exposure. Fungus-growing ants have a specialized mutualism with Pseudonocardia, a bacterium that lives on the ants’ exoskeletons and helps protect their fungal garden food source from harmful pathogens. The developed method allows for visualization of bacterial-derived compounds on the ant exoskeleton. This method demonstrates the capability to detect compounds that are specifically localized to the bacterial patch on ant exoskeletons, shows good reproducibility across individual ants, and achieves accurate mass measurements within 5 ppm error when using a high-resolution, accurate-mass mass spectrometer.
