TY - JOUR
T1 - Functional characterization of odorant receptors in the ponerine ant, Harpegnathos saltator
AU - Slone, Jesse D.
AU - Pask, Gregory M.
AU - Ferguson, Stephen T.
AU - Millar, Jocelyn G.
AU - Berger, Shelley L.
AU - Reinberg, Danny
AU - Liebig, Juergen
AU - Ray, Anandasankar
AU - Zwiebel, Laurence J.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Zi Ye and Samuel Ochieng for technical support and members of the L.J.Z. laboratory and Roberto Bonasio, Claude Desplan, D. Patrick Abbot, and R. Jason Pitts for their thoughtful insights and help with statistics. We also thank other members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Collaborative Innovation Award (HCIA) Ant Epigenetics Group for valuable feedback during the design and implementation of these experiments, and for comments on this manuscript. Funding for this work was provided by HCIA 2009005 (to D.R., S.L.B., J.L., A.R., and L.J.Z.) and by Vanderbilt University (L.J.Z.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/8/8
Y1 - 2017/8/8
N2 - Animals use a variety of sensory modalities—including visual, acoustic, and chemical—to sense their environment and interact with both conspecifics and other species. Such communication is especially critical in eusocial insects such as honey bees and ants, where cooperation is critical for survival and reproductive success. Various classes of chemoreceptors have been hypothesized to play essential roles in the origin and evolution of eusociality in ants, through their functional roles in pheromone detection that characterizes reproductive status and colony membership. To better understand the molecular mechanisms by which chemoreceptors regulate social behaviors, we investigated the roles of a critical class of chemoreceptors, the odorant receptors (ORs), from the ponerine ant Harpegnathos saltator in detecting cuticular hydrocarbon pheromones. In light of the massive OR expansion in ants (∼400 genes per species), a representative survey based on phylogenetic and transcriptomic criteria was carried out across discrete odorant receptor subfamilies. Responses to several classes of semiochemicals are described, including cuticular hydrocarbons and mandibular gland components that act as H. saltator pheromones, and a range of more traditional general odorants. When viewed through the prism of caste-specific OR enrichment and distinctive OR subfamily odorant response profiles, our findings suggest that whereas individual HsOrs appear to be narrowly tuned, there is no apparent segregation of tuning responses within any discrete HsOr subfamily. Instead, the HsOR gene family as a whole responds to a broad array of compounds, including both cuticular hydrocarbons and general odorants that are likely to mediate distinct behaviors.
AB - Animals use a variety of sensory modalities—including visual, acoustic, and chemical—to sense their environment and interact with both conspecifics and other species. Such communication is especially critical in eusocial insects such as honey bees and ants, where cooperation is critical for survival and reproductive success. Various classes of chemoreceptors have been hypothesized to play essential roles in the origin and evolution of eusociality in ants, through their functional roles in pheromone detection that characterizes reproductive status and colony membership. To better understand the molecular mechanisms by which chemoreceptors regulate social behaviors, we investigated the roles of a critical class of chemoreceptors, the odorant receptors (ORs), from the ponerine ant Harpegnathos saltator in detecting cuticular hydrocarbon pheromones. In light of the massive OR expansion in ants (∼400 genes per species), a representative survey based on phylogenetic and transcriptomic criteria was carried out across discrete odorant receptor subfamilies. Responses to several classes of semiochemicals are described, including cuticular hydrocarbons and mandibular gland components that act as H. saltator pheromones, and a range of more traditional general odorants. When viewed through the prism of caste-specific OR enrichment and distinctive OR subfamily odorant response profiles, our findings suggest that whereas individual HsOrs appear to be narrowly tuned, there is no apparent segregation of tuning responses within any discrete HsOr subfamily. Instead, the HsOR gene family as a whole responds to a broad array of compounds, including both cuticular hydrocarbons and general odorants that are likely to mediate distinct behaviors.
KW - Ant
KW - Odor coding
KW - Odorant receptor
KW - Pheromone
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1704647114
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1704647114
M3 - Article
C2 - 28696298
AN - SCOPUS:85026889177
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 114
SP - 8586
EP - 8591
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 32
ER -