DNA Methylation and the Evolution of Social Insect Castes

现代生物学最大的挑战之一就是揭开生物的神秘面纱。有没有可能解释复杂的生物体是如何在一生的发展过程中，以及在几千年的进化过程中形成的？基因显然是重要的组成部分。但更重要的可能是特定基因如何以及何时被使用或表达。该项目团队一直在研究基因表达在组织蜜蜂和黄蜂的复杂社会中的作用，它们令人难以置信的复杂社会行为在许多方面与人类社会相媲美。在拟议的工作中，他们将使用新的尖端技术，包括产生巨大的DNA和RNA序列信息库，来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，即在基因表达方式上具有极大灵活性和协调性的动物更有可能进化出复杂的合作社会。如果是这样的话，这可能是社会复杂性如何进化的“秘密”之一，这些发现可以使我们更接近于理解使生物体变得如此多样化和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群体的学生）和一名博士后研究员将接受实地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学区分享他们的发现。首席研究员计划举办几次公开讲座和外展活动，向更广泛的社区宣传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.