The role of sex differentiation in social insect caste differentiation

性别分化在社会性昆虫种姓分化中的作用

• 批准号: 330449926
• 负责人: Privatdozent Dr. Jan Oettler
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Arbeitsgruppe Evolution, Verhalten und Genetik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2016-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/330449926?language=en
• 关键词: role; sex; differentiation; social; insect

A highly sought-after question in sociobiology is how queens and workers develop from the same genetic architecture. The developmental trajectories leading to these discrete phenotypes comprise a complex network of input signals (e.g. nutrition, allelic state), mediating hormones (e.g. juvenile hormone, ecdyson), mediating pathways (e.g. target of rapamycin, insulin/insulin-like signaling) and target genes (e.g. core development genes) and the transcriptional regulation thereof (e.g. transcription factors, methylation). How these interact however is largely unclear. We recently presented an intuitive proposal based on correlative observations that highly conserved hub genes responsible for sex differentiation such as the transcription factor doublesex (dsx) gene, played a crucial role in the repeated evolutionary transition to eusociality and caste polyphenism (Klein et al., 2016). studying how the two transcription factors dsx and kr-h2, both well-known for their ability to translate variable input signals into large transcription differences using intermediate-level regulators, act in social insect caste differentiation. Using the emerging model ant Cardiocondyla obscurior, this project aims to resolve the proximate molecular foundation of eusociality.The initial C. obscurior genome grant (2011-2015) basically funded my habilitation and enabled the establishment of several lines of research of my CORE (Cardiocondyla Obscurior REsearch) group (and in the Heinze lab), namely evolutionary novelty and rapid adaptation (Schrader et al., 2014; Schrempf et al., 2015), symbiosis (Klein et al., 2015), aging (Wyschetzki et al., 2015; Oettler and Schrempf, 2016; Wyschetzki et al., 2016), a 3D model of a worker brain, the finding of selenoproteins in male accessory glands and a behavioral gene function study (Bressan et al., 2014; Fuessl et al., 2014; Oettler et al., 2015) and lastly the regulation and evolution of phenotypic plasticity (Schrader et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2016, Oettler et al. submitted (manuscript included in this proposal)). This proposal represents the first step in further development of this rich source of information.

社会生物学中一个备受关注的问题是蚁后和工蜂是如何从相同的基因结构中进化而来的。导致这些离散表型的发育轨迹包括一个复杂的输入信号网络（如营养、等位基因状态）、介导激素（如幼年激素、卵磷脂）、介导途径（如雷帕霉素靶点、胰岛素/胰岛素样信号传导）和靶基因（如核心发育基因）及其转录调控（如转录因子、甲基化）。然而，它们如何相互作用在很大程度上尚不清楚。我们最近根据相关观察提出了一个直观的建议，即高度保守的负责性别分化的中心基因，如转录因子双性（dsx）基因，在向群居性和种姓多表型的反复进化过渡中发挥了关键作用（Klein et al., 2016）。研究两种转录因子DSX和kr-h2如何在昆虫社会等级分化中起作用，这两种转录因子都以使用中级调节因子将可变输入信号转化为大的转录差异而闻名。利用新出现的模型蚂蚁心髁蚁，本项目旨在解决社会性的近似分子基础。最初的C. obscurior基因组资助（2011-2015）基本资助了我的康复，并使我的CORE （Cardiocondyla obscurior research）小组（以及Heinze实验室）建立了几个研究方向，即进化新新性和快速适应（Schrader et al., 2014; Schrempf et al., 2015）、共生（Klein et al., 2015）、衰老(Wyschetzki et al., 2015; Oettler and Schrempf, 2016；Wyschetzki et al., 2016)，一个工人大脑的3D模型，男性副腺体中硒蛋白的发现和行为基因功能研究（Bressan et al., 2014; Fuessl et al., 2014; Oettler et al., 2015），最后是表型可塑性的调节和进化（Schrader et al., 2015; Klein et al., 2016, Oettler et al.提交（手稿包含在本提案中））。这一建议是进一步开发这一丰富信息来源的第一步。