ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2021
Evidence for reduced immune gene diversity and activity during the evolution of termites.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- A new narrative for social immunity research in termites.Trends open · 2026Review
- Insect immune systems: same same but different but still same.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Pathogen-specific social immunity is associated with erosion of individual immune function in an ant.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Chemical and transcriptomic diversity do not correlate with ascending levels of social complexity in the insect order Blattodea.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Pervasive relaxed selection in termite genomes.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Activation of immune pathways in common bed bugs,Frontiers in immunology · 2024Article
- Overcoming Immune Deficiency with Allogrooming.Insects · 2023Article
- Article
- Eating in a losing cause: limited benefit of modified macronutrient consumption following infection in the oriental cockroach Blatta orientalis.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Antimicrobial peptide expression in the cockroach gut during enterobacterial infection is specific and influenced by type III secretion.Biology open · 2022Article
- Short and long-term costs of inbreeding in the lifelong-partnership in a termite.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Eusociality is linked to caste-specific differences in metabolism, immune system, and somatic maintenance-related processes in an ant species.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2021Article
- Evidence for reduced immune gene diversity and activity during the evolution of termites.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The evolution of biological complexity is associated with the emergence of bespoke immune systems that maintain and protect organism integrity. Unlike the well-studied immune systems of cells and individuals, little is known about the origins of immunity during the transition to eusociality, a major evolutionary transition comparable to the evolution of multicellular organisms from single-celled ancestors. We aimed to tackle this by characterizing the immune gene repertoire of 18 cockroach and termite species, spanning the spectrum of solitary, subsocial and eusocial lifestyles. We find that key transitions in termite sociality are correlated with immune gene family contractions. In cross-species comparisons of immune gene expression, we find evidence for a caste-specific social defence system in termites, which appears to operate at the expense of individual immune protection. Our study indicates that a major transition in organismal complexity may have entailed a fundamental reshaping of the immune system optimized for group over individual defence.
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