宾夕法尼亚大学Shelley L. Berger团队的一项最新研究开发出神经肽指定和重编程切叶蚁的劳动分工。2025年6月11日出版的《细胞》杂志发表了这项成果。

该课题组人员利用这个工作系统来测试行为编程的分子基础和重编程的可塑性程度。该研究团队鉴定了特定的神经肽介导的工蜂分工，发现两种神经肽与切叶和育雏的特征行为有关。基因敲除或注射这些神经肽导致每种行为的明显增加或减少，并导致转录组向自然种姓中表达的基因途径转移。研究组还揭示了社会哺乳动物裸鼹鼠H. glaber的工蚁转录组与同源的A. cephalalotes工蚁之间的全球相似性。这项工作强调了神经肽在建立复杂的社会行为和个体行为类型之间显着的可塑性方面的基本功能。

研究人员表示，群居昆虫为研究组成合作群体的复杂个体行为机制提供了强有力的模型。切叶蚁属的工蚁是在表型上截然不同的工蚁类型中行为隔离的极端例子。

附：英文原文

Title: Neuropeptides specify and reprogram division of labor in the leafcutter ant Atta cephalotes

Author: Michael B. Gilbert, Karl M. Glastad, Maxxum Fioriti, Matan Sorek, Tierney Scarpa, Freddy S. Purnell, Daniel Xu, Lindsay K. Pino, Anatoly Korotkov, Ali Biashad, Josue Baeza, Richard Lauman, Anastasiia Filippova, Balint Z. Kacsoh, Roberto Bonasio, Mackenzie W. Mathis, Benjamin A. Garcia, Andrei Seluanov, Vera Gorbunova, Shelley L. Berger

Issue&Volume: 2025-06-11

Abstract: Social insects offer powerful models to investigate mechanisms of elaborate individual behaviors comprising a cooperative community. Workers of the leafcutter ant genus Atta are extreme examples of behavioral segregation among phenotypically distinct worker types. We utilize this worker system to test the molecular underpinnings of behavioral programming and the extent of plasticity to reprogramming. We identify specific neuropeptides mediating worker division of labor in A. cephalotes, finding two neuropeptides associated with characteristic behaviors of leaf cutting and of brood care. Genetic knockdown or injection of these neuropeptides led to a stark gain or loss of each behavior and to transcriptomic shifts toward gene pathways expressed in the natural castes. We also reveal global similarities between worker transcriptomes of the eusocial mammal, the naked mole-rat H. glaber, with orthologous A. cephalotes workers. This work underscores the essential function of neuropeptides in establishing complex social behavior and a remarkable plasticity among individual behavioral types.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.05.023

Source: https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(25)00573-2