Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Benjamin A. Taylor, Daisy Taylor, Alexandrina Bodrug-Schepers, Francisco Camara Ferreira, Nancy Stralis-Pavese, Heinz Himmelbauer, Roderic Guigo, Max Reuter, Seirian Sumner
Summary: This study investigated the relationship between reproductive division of labour and transcriptomic signatures in a specific species. The results showed that the association between reproductive division of labour and transcriptomic signatures is more subtle and variable in this species compared to other social species. Additionally, variation in gene expression among non-reproductives reflects their investment into foraging effort rather than their social rank.
Article
Biology
Judith Korb, Karen Meusemann, Denise Aumer, Abel Bernadou, Daniel Elsner, Barbara Feldmeyer, Susanne Foitzik, Juergen Heinze, Romain Libbrecht, Silu Lin, Megha Majoe, Jose Manuel Monroy Kuhn, Volker Nehring, Matteo A. Negroni, Robert J. Paxton, Alice C. Seguret, Marah Stoldt, Thomas Flatt
Summary: By comparing gene expression patterns between young and old castes in different lineages of social insects, the study reveals the important role of the insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 signalling (IIS)/target of rapamycin (TOR)/juvenile hormone (JH) network in ageing and caste-specific physiology of social insects.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Article
Entomology
Phoebe A. Koenig, Corrie S. Moreau
Summary: This study found that acorn ants adjust their venom allocation according to raid risk during their colony's development. Workers produce more venom in the summer, when raids are most likely to occur, and nurse ants produce more venom as the number of pupae requiring defense increases. The difference in venom volume between nurses and foragers also increases with colony size.
ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Nadejda Tsvetkov, Amro Zayed
Summary: The study revealed that neonicotinoid exposure influences the neurogenomic states of bee foragers and nurses in different ways, with foragers experiencing shifts in genes related to cognition and development, and nurses experiencing shifts in genes related to metabolism. The study also found minimal overlap in the differentially expressed genes, potentially helping to reconcile contradictory results in neonicotinoid literature.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Simone M. Glaser, Christoph Grueter
Summary: This article investigates the effects of social learning on individual foraging success of ants in different environmental conditions. The study found that social learners discovered better food sources than individual learners in rich environments, but collected less food during the trials. Interestingly, individual learners improved their success over time by switching food sources more frequently than social learners.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jeanette B. Moss, Christopher B. Cunningham, Elizabeth C. McKinney, Allen J. Moore
Summary: Flexible interactions between parents and offspring are essential for buffering families against variable environmental conditions. In a study on carrion beetles, researchers found that high temperatures did not induce behavioral plasticity in parents, but rather, behavioral stability was associated with the maintenance of existing genetic programs. The study suggests that while selection for compensatory gene expression could expand parents' tolerance for different temperatures, without expanding the toolkit of genes involved, adaptive changes are unlikely to occur.
Article
Oncology
Chao Chen, Qiang Guo, Yang Liu, Qinghua Hou, Mengying Liao, Yanying Guo, Yupeng Zang, Fei Wang, Huanyu Liu, Xinyu Luan, Yanling Liang, Zhuojue Guan, Yanling Li, Haozhen Liu, Xuan Dong, Xiuqing Zhang, Jixian Liu, Qumiao Xu
Summary: Our study identified a subpopulation of myofibroblastic cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), POSTN+ CAFs, which may associate with SPP1(+) macrophages to promote the formation of desmoplastic architecture and participate in immune suppression in lung cancer. Furthermore, we showed that POSTN+ CAFs are associated with cancer progression and poor clinical outcomes.
CLINICAL AND TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xiao Liu, Ivy Aneas, Noboru Sakabe, Rebecca L. Anderson, Christine Billstrand, Cristina Paz, Harjot Kaur, Brian Furner, Seong Choi, Adriana Y. Prichina, Elizabeth Ann L. Enninga, Haidong Dong, Amy Murtha, Gregory E. Crawford, John A. Kessler, William Grobman, Marcelo A. Nobrega, Sarosh Rana, Carole Ober
Summary: The mechanisms underlying the timing of labor in humans are largely unknown. This study aimed to characterize the cells at the maternal-fetal interface (MFI) in term and preterm pregnancies in Black women. High-dimensional single-cell resolution analysis revealed distinct cell populations at the MFI, including immune and non-immune cells. Perturbations in the PD1/PD-L1 pathway at the MFI may play a role in the onset of spontaneous preterm labor.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Review
Pharmacology & Pharmacy
Ruqayya Afridi, Sihwan Seol, Hyo Jung Kang, Kyoungho Suk
Summary: Recent studies have documented the complex interaction between peripheral and central immune pathways in neuropsychiatric disorders, with genetic determinants remaining elusive. Transcriptome studies have identified dysregulated genes associated with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and schizophrenia.
BIOCHEMICAL PHARMACOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Thomas Wagner, Lena Bachenberg, Simone M. Glaser, Avgousta Oikonomou, Melissa Linn, Christoph Grueter
Summary: The study found that differences in size between leader and follower ants significantly reduced the success rate of tandem running, possibly due to varying walking speeds among ants of different sizes. In ant societies, phenotypic differences among workers may not always be beneficial for communication efficiency, sometimes leading to negative impacts.
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Immunology
Laura Sellmer, Julia Kovacs, Julia Walter, Joerg Kumbrink, Jens Neumann, Diego Kauffmann-Guerrero, Rosemarie Kiefl, Christian Schneider, Andreas Jung, Juergen Behr, Amanda Tufman
Summary: The composition of immune cells in surgically removed tissues is associated with survival in NSCLC patients. Levels of immune cell exhaustion markers may indicate immune dysfunction and are associated with survival after curative surgery in NSCLC.
FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Oncology
Shoaib Ajaib, Disha Lodha, Steven Pollock, Gemma Hemmings, Martina A. Finetti, Arief Gusnanto, Aruna Chakrabarty, Azzam Ismail, Erica Wilson, Frederick S. Varn, Bethany Hunter, Andrew Filby, Asa A. Brockman, David McDonald, Roel G. W. Verhaak, Rebecca A. Ihrie, Lucy F. Stead
Summary: Researchers have developed a tool that can separate immune and neoplastic cells within the GBM tumor microenvironment from bulk RNA sequencing data. GBMdeconvoluteR accurately quantifies immune and neoplastic cell proportions in IDHwt GBM tumor samples.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Chunnuan Zhang, Junhui Wang, Qian Qi, Li Yang, Ping Sun, Xiaoyu Yuan
Summary: The study found that Triphenyltin (TPT) induced oxidative stress and immune suppression in goldfish, but Fructooligosaccharide (FOS) had a protective effect, mitigating the toxicity of TPT.
ECOTOXICOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY
(2021)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Aapo Kahilainen, Vicencio Oostra, Panu Somervuo, Guillaume Minard, Marjo Saastamoinen
Summary: Predicting the effects of climate change on plant-insect herbivore interactions is challenging, with responses to water limitation-induced host plant quality change in a Glanville fritillary butterfly metapopulation showing marked variability. Intraspecific variability in plasticity suggests potential for buffering against drought-induced changes in host plant quality within the Finnish M. cinxia metapopulation.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Kiran Adhikari, Jae Hak Son, Anna H. Rensink, Jaweria Jaweria, Daniel Bopp, Leo W. Beukeboom, Richard P. Meisel
Summary: Sex determination in flies evolves rapidly, with selection on alleles linked to new master sex determining loci on proto-sex chromosomes driving evolutionary turnover. House flies are informative models for studying the evolution of sex determination, with polygenic sex determination and potential temperature-dependent fitness effects on gene expression. Numerous genes in male house flies show expression patterns dependent on the interaction between proto-Y chromosome genotype and temperature, with potential implications for reproduction, metabolism, stress response, and immunity across populations.
Article
Zoology
Tomer Gilad, Arik Dorfman, Aziz Subach, Inon Scharf
Summary: Although injury is common in ants, it does not significantly affect the food-searching behavior of worker ants.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Krzysztof Miler, Inon Scharf
Summary: Recent research has shown that antlions have cognitive abilities in terms of operant conditioning and T-maze solving, and these abilities can be influenced by temperature. High temperatures can lead to impaired retention of learned behaviors in antlion larvae after moulting.
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Krzysztof Miler, Inon Scharf
Summary: Antlions and wormlions are unrelated insects that both construct traps and hunt similar prey. Research on antlions has been accumulating, while studies on wormlions are lacking, particularly on their prey sensing and cognitive abilities. These two taxa share some characteristics but differ in other aspects. It is recommended to conduct future research on both antlions and wormlions to gain a better understanding of convergent evolution.
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Zoology
Tomer Gilad, Arik Dorfman, Aziz Subach, Romain Libbrecht, Susanne Foitzik, Inon Scharf
Summary: This study aims to investigate the forgetting mechanisms in the desert ant Cataglyphis niger when learning spatial information in a maze. The experiments showed that there was neither proactive interference nor retroactive interference in this system. Instead, the ants' persistence or readiness to search for food increased with successive runs in the maze. These findings have important implications for understanding the foraging behavior mechanisms in ants.
INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Evelien Jongepier, Alice Seguret, Anton Labutin, Barbara Feldmeyer, Claudia Gstoettl, Susanne Foitzik, Juergen Heinze, Erich Bornberg-Bauer
Summary: The evolution of an obligate parasitic lifestyle often leads to reduction of morphological and physiological traits, including loss of genes and functions. Slave-making ants exploit the work force of related ant species for social behaviors like brood care and foraging, with recent divergence allowing studies on gene family evolution. Chemoreceptor genes multiply during eusocial evolution, but slave-making ants have fewer gustatory receptors than hosts, potentially reflecting outsourcing of foraging tasks. Parasites also have fewer odorant receptors, showing convergent loss patterns across different origins of parasitism, particularly in genes related to social behavior. This rare convergent molecular evolution at the gene level demonstrates evolution can be repeatable and reversible as ants lose important social traits in transition to a parasitic lifestyle.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Zoology
Krzysztof Miler, Inon Scharf
Summary: Antlions and wormlions, distantly related insect taxa with convergent evolution in hunting method, exhibit divergent responses to biotic and abiotic environmental factors.
INTEGRATIVE ZOOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Zoology
Tomer Gilad, Ori Bahar, Malak Hasan, Adi Bar, Aziz Subach, Inon Scharf
Summary: This study examines the importance of vision and smell for foraging and maze exploration in ants. The results show that ants use both senses to find food, and can associate light with food.
Article
Entomology
Aziz Subach, Bar Avidov, Arik Dorfman, Darar Bega, Tomer Gilad, Mark Kvetny, May Hershkovitz Reshef, Susanne Foitzik, Inon Scharf
Summary: Experience has limited contribution to foraging success under direct competition, and its impact depends on the size of the group; among groups of equal size, ants trained in complex mazes reach food rewards faster and more individuals feed on the food.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Zohar Hagbi, Tomer Gilad, Pazit Zadicario, David Eilam, Inon Scharf
Summary: This study tested the spatial navigation performance of rats and ants in horizontal and vertical mazes after learning reward locations. The results showed that rats performed slower but more accurately in vertical mazes after training in horizontal mazes, while they were less accurate but faster in horizontal mazes after training in vertical mazes. The performance changes in ants were not significant.
Article
Ecology
Inon Scharf, Graeme D. Ruxton
Summary: Competition plays a crucial role in ecological processes, influencing natural selection and evolution. Shadow competition, a specific form of competition, occurs when a moving prey is captured by a competing predator before it reaches the attack range of a focal predator. Unlike interference and exploitation, shadow competition is characterized by its involvement of space and movement direction. This understudied type of competition can have distinctive effects on animal behavior and higher levels of organization. By summarizing existing cases, identifying potential scenarios, and suggesting future research directions, this study aims to enhance our understanding of shadow competition.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Arik Dorfman, Aziz Subach, Inon Scharf
Summary: The movement behavior of the Saharan horned viper in its natural habitat is influenced by microhabitat type and slope. The vipers tend to move towards the top of sand dunes and concentrate their foraging behavior in semi-stable areas. Desert rodents, their main prey, show the highest activity in shifting sands.
ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Juliane Hartke, Alejandro Ceron-Noriega, Marah Stoldt, Tom Sistermans, Marion Kever, Jenny Fuchs, Falk Butter, Susanne Foitzik
Summary: Parasites with complex life cycles often manipulate the phenotype of their intermediate hosts to increase transmission to their definitive hosts. Infection with Anomotaenia brevis, a cestode that uses Temnothorax nylanderi ants as intermediate hosts, leads to extended host lifespan and changes in behavior, morphology, and coloration. The parasite releases proteins into its host that may explain these changes, with two antioxidants being the most abundant among them.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Marah Stoldt, Erwann Collin, Maide Nesibe Macit, Susanne Foitzik
Summary: Insect social parasites exploit the hosts' social behavior. This study on ants revealed that the presence of the social parasite Harpagoxenus sublaevis alters the behavioral and brain gene expression of the host Leptothorax acervorum. The transcriptome analysis showed that the social parasites affect the host's brain activity and potentially lead to behavioral changes. The presence of unrelated individuals (conspecifics or parasites) also resulted in changes in antennal gene expression, suggesting early priming of odor perception.
Article
Biology
Marcel A. Caminer, Romain Libbrecht, Megha Majoe, David V. Ho, Peter Baumann, Susanne Foitzik
Summary: Division of labor is a characteristic trait of insect societies, where different individuals specialize in different tasks. This study found that nurses and foragers of the ant Temnothorax longispinosus differ in their perception of olfactory environment and task-related signals, potentially contributing to the division of labor.
COMMUNICATIONS BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Philip Kohlmeier, Barbara Feldmeyer, Susanne Foitzik
Summary: In social hymenopterans, workers' task specialization and behavioural flexibility are influenced by histone acetylation and social signals indicating task demands. Inhibiting p300/CBP histone acetyltransferases (HAT) impairs the ability of older workers to switch tasks, while increasing the ability of young workers to accelerate their behavioural development. These findings shed light on the epigenetic processes underlying behavioural flexibility and provide insight into the mechanisms of task specialization in social insects.