ArticleBMC biology2018
Clonal raider ant brain transcriptomics identifies candidate molecular mechanisms for reproductive division of labor.
Article in BMC biology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 45 citations in OpenAlex.
- Regulation of reproductive and behavioral plasticity in social insects.Current opinion in insect science · 2026Review
- Unmated Queens Show Worker-Like Behaviour and Gene Expression in Polygynous Colonies of the Ant Stigmatomma pallipes.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Convergent evolution of a conserved molecular network underlies parenting and sociality.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Evolutionary Transitions in Social Behavior are Associated With Convergent and Partially Reversible Expansions of Transcription Factor Binding Sites.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Juvenile hormone as a key regulator for asymmetric caste differentiation in ants.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- An evolutionarily conserved pathway mediated by neuroparsin-A regulates reproductive plasticity in ants.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Social administration of juvenile hormone to larvae increases body size and nutritional needs for pupation.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Neuromodulators and neuroepigenetics of social behavior in ants.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Review
- The effect of the brood and the queen on early gene expression in bumble bee workers' brains.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Seasonal variations of serotonin in the visual system of an ant revealed by immunofluorescence and a machine learning approach.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Identification of sex-biased and neurodevelopment genesFrontiers in physiology · 2022Article
- A molecular toolkit for superorganisms.Trends in genetics : TIG · 2021Review
- The role of epigenetics, particularly DNA methylation, in the evolution of caste in insect societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
- An oxytocin/vasopressin-related neuropeptide modulates social foraging behavior in the clonal raider ant.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- Comparative transcriptomic analysis of the mechanisms underpinning ageing and fecundity in social insects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Queen loss increases worker survival in leaf-cutting ants under paraquat-induced oxidative stress.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Comparative transcriptomics highlights convergent evolution of energy metabolic pathways in group-living spiders.Zoological research · 2021Article
- The molecular basis of socially mediated phenotypic plasticity in a eusocial paper wasp.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Self-organized division of cognitive labor.PloS one · 2021Article
- Queen pheromone modulates the expression of epigenetic modifier genes in the brain of honeybee workers.Biology letters · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDivision of labor between reproductive queens and workers that perform brood care is a hallmark of insect societies. However, studies of the molecular basis of this fundamental dichotomy are limited by the fact that the caste of an individual cannot typically be experimentally manipulated at the adult stage. Here we take advantage of the unique biology of the clonal raider ant, Ooceraea biroi, to study brain gene expression dynamics during experimentally induced transitions between reproductive and brood care behavior.
resultsIntroducing larvae that inhibit reproduction and induce brood care behavior causes much faster changes in adult gene expression than removing larvae. In addition, the general patterns of gene expression differ depending on whether ants transition from reproduction to brood care or vice versa, indicating that gene expression changes between phases are cyclic rather than pendular. Finally, we identify genes that could play upstream roles in regulating reproduction and behavior because they show large and early expression changes in one or both transitions.
conclusionsOur analyses reveal that the nature and timing of gene expression changes differ substantially depending on the direction of the transition, and identify a suite of promising candidate molecular regulators of reproductive division of labor that can now be characterized further in both social and solitary animal models. This study contributes to understanding the molecular regulation of reproduction and behavior, as well as the organization and evolution of insect societies.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.