DNA Methylation and the Evolution of Social Insect Castes

现代生物学面临的最大挑战之一是揭开生物的巨大复杂性的神秘面纱。有没有可能解释复杂的生物体是如何通过一生的发展，以及跨越数千年的进化而形成的？基因显然是重要的基石。但更重要的可能是如何以及何时使用或表达特定的基因。该项目团队一直在研究基因表达在组织蜜蜂和黄蜂复杂社会中的作用，它们令人难以置信的复杂的社会行为在许多方面与人类社会相媲美。在这项拟议的工作中，他们将使用新的尖端技术，包括生成巨大的DNA和RNA序列信息库，以比较基因在群居黄蜂女王和工蜂大脑中的表达方式。他们将研究这样一种观点，即在基因表达方面具有极大灵活性和协调性的动物可能更有可能进化出复杂的、合作的社会。如果是这样的话，这可能是社会复杂性是如何进化的“秘密”之一，而这些发现可以让我们更接近于理解让有机体变得如此多样化并很好地适应环境的遗传过程。该项目还将提供大量培训和教育机会。几名学生(包括一些来自代表性不足的群体)和一名博士后研究助理将接受现场和实验室技术方面的广泛培训，并将学习一些最新的遗传方法和分析。项目团队还将聘请当地一名高中教师参与项目研究，目的是通过教育项目与爱荷华州农村的学区分享他们的发现。首席调查员计划举办几次公开讲座和外展活动，教育更广泛的社区有关传粉者生物学和健康、遗传学和进化等主题。

One of the greatest challenges of modern biology is to demystify the overwhelming complexity of living things. Is it possible to explain how intricately complex organisms come to be, both during a lifetime through development, and across millennia through evolution? Genes are clearly important building blocks. But even more important may be how and when particular genes are used, or expressed. The project team has been studying the role of gene expression in organizing the complex societies of bees and wasps, whose incredibly sophisticated social behavior in many ways rivals human society. In the proposed work, they will be using new cutting-edge technologies, involving the generation of huge repositories of DNA and RNA sequence information, to compare how genes are expressed in the brains of social wasp queens and workers. They will investigate the idea that animals with great flexibility and coordination in how their genes are expressed may be more likely to evolve complex, cooperative societies. If so, this may be one of the "secrets" to how social complexity evolves, and these findings can bring us closer to understanding the genetic processes that allow organisms to become so diverse and well-adapted to their environments. This project will also provide numerous training and educational opportunities. Several students (including some from underrepresented groups) and a postdoctoral research associate will be broadly trained in field and laboratory techniques, and will learn some of the latest genetic methods and analyses. The project team will also engage a local high school teacher in the project research, with the aim of sharing their findings through educational programs with school districts in rural Iowa. The Principal Investigator plans to present several public lectures and outreach activities to educate the broader community about topics such as pollinator biology and health, genetics, and evolution.