Oral transfer of chemical cues, growth proteins and hormones in social insects.
Oral transfer of chemical cues, growth proteins and hormones in social insects.
复制标题
DOI：
10.7554/elife.20375
复制
发表时间：
2016-11-29
期刊：
影响因子：
7.7
通讯作者：
Keller L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
LeBoeuf AC;Waridel P;Brent CS;Gonçalves AN;Menin L;Ortiz D;Riba-Grognuz O;Koto A;Soares ZG;Privman E;Miska EA;Benton R;Keller L
群居昆虫经常在成虫之间以及成虫和幼虫之间进行口服液交换——营养交换。虽然营养性被广泛认为是一种食物共享机制，但我们假设这种液体的内源性成分可能是群体成员之间化学交流的新手段。通过蛋白质和小分子质谱分析以及RNA测序，我们发现floridanus蚂蚁的营养液中含有一组特定的消化和非消化相关蛋白质，以及碳氢化合物、microrna和关键的发育调节因子，幼年激素。当在工蜂的食物中添加这种激素时，通过营养饲养的幼虫完成变态的可能性增加了一倍，成为更大的工蜂。对群居昆虫营养液蛋白的比较表明，许多营养液蛋白是生长、发育和行为成熟的调节因子。这些结果表明，营养作用在通讯中起着以前未被怀疑的作用，并使群体表型的共同控制成为可能。蚂蚁、蜜蜂和其他群居昆虫生活在一个大的群体中，所有的个体都在一起工作，收集食物、抚养后代和保卫群体。这种程度的合作要求群体中的昆虫能够相互交流。大多数群居昆虫在它们的群体中与其他个体共享液体口对口。这种行为被称为营养性，使这些物种能够在成虫之间以及成虫和幼虫之间传递食物。因此，“营养性”创造了一个相互作用的网络，将群落的每个成员联系在一起。考虑到这一点，LeBoeuf等人研究了蚂蚁是否也可以利用营养性来共享与群体相关的信息，作为一种化学交流形式。实验表明，除了食物，木蚁还会传递小核糖核酸（RNA）分子、帮助它们识别同伴的化学信号，以及许多似乎与调节蚂蚁生长有关的蛋白质。LeBoeuf等人还发现，营养液中含有幼体激素，是昆虫生长发育的重要调节因子。在成年蚂蚁传递给幼虫的食物中添加幼体激素，使幼虫存活到成年的可能性增加了一倍。这表明，在这个社会网络上，蛋白质和其他分子可以被蚂蚁用来调节群体的发展。从这项工作开始的下一步将是研究滋养液的其他成分的作用，并研究个体蚂蚁如何在不同的社会和环境条件下适应液体的内容。另一个挑战将是确定以这种方式传递给幼虫的特定成分如何控制它们的生长和发育。
Social insects frequently engage in oral fluid exchange – trophallaxis – between adults, and between adults and larvae. Although trophallaxis is widely considered a food-sharing mechanism, we hypothesized that endogenous components of this fluid might underlie a novel means of chemical communication between colony members. Through protein and small-molecule mass spectrometry and RNA sequencing, we found that trophallactic fluid in the ant Camponotus floridanus contains a set of specific digestion- and non-digestion related proteins, as well as hydrocarbons, microRNAs, and a key developmental regulator, juvenile hormone. When C. floridanus workers’ food was supplemented with this hormone, the larvae they reared via trophallaxis were twice as likely to complete metamorphosis and became larger workers. Comparison of trophallactic fluid proteins across social insect species revealed that many are regulators of growth, development and behavioral maturation. These results suggest that trophallaxis plays previously unsuspected roles in communication and enables communal control of colony phenotypes. Ants, bees and other social insects live in large colonies where all the individuals work together to gather food, rear young and defend the colony. This level of cooperation requires the insects in the colony to be able to communicate with each other. Most social insects share fluid mouth-to-mouth with other individuals in their colony. This behavior, called trophallaxis, allows these species to pass around food, both between adults, and between adults and larvae. Trophallaxis therefore creates a network of interactions linking every member of the colony. With this in mind, LeBoeuf et al. investigated whether trophallaxis may also be used by ants to share information relevant to the colony as a form of chemical communication. The experiments show that in addition to food, carpenter ants also pass small ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, chemical signals that help them recognize nestmates, and many proteins that appear to be involved in regulating the growth of ants. LeBoeuf et al. also found that trophallactic fluid contains juvenile hormone, an important regulator of insect growth and development. Adding juvenile hormone to the food that adult ants pass to the larvae made it twice as likely that the larvae would survive to reach adulthood. This indicates that proteins and other molecules transferred mouth-to-mouth over this social network could be used by the ants to regulate how the colony develops. The next steps following on from this work will be to investigate the roles of the other components of trophallactic fluid, and to examine how individual ants adapt the contents of the fluid in different social and environmental conditions. Another challenge will be to determine how specific components passed to larvae in this way can control their growth and development.