ASU scientists are the first to sequence entire ant genomes, which can lead to future awareness of human behavior and aging.
The two researchers, Jürgen Liebig, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences, and post-doctoral student Navdeep Mutti, joined together to find a way to study the function of epigenetics in ants.
Epigenetics decide which genes are shown in cells, he said. They also show how changes to gene expression, which is how a gene works within a cell, can be passed on to possible cell generations.
Liebig said that genomes make up the entirety of an organism’s genetic information. The purpose of genome sequencing is to determine the order of building blocks in each human chromosome.
Liebig said the research from the ants’ genetic blueprints reveals the remarkable social behavior of ants.
“By studying the [ant] genomes, we can now have a better understanding of human biology,” Liebig said. “We have identified the genes so we know what the genes are and then we can look at gene expression.” Liebig said.
Danny Reinberg, biochemistry professor at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, was interested in studying new ant research. His colleague, Shelley Berger, suggested they study ant behavior and he complied. He contacted Liebig because he knew Liebig is an ant expert.
Liebig and Mutti agreed to join the project and they teamed up with other scientists from Pennsylvania, New York, Denmark and China.
Liebig said that the scientists examined the jumping ant, Harpegnathos saltator, and the carpenter ant, Camponotus floridanus, in their study. The two ants vary in their social structures and behaviors.
Mutti said both of the ant species have genes that are shared with humans.
The scientists found that the carpenter ant has roughly 17,000 genes and the jumping ant has over 18,500 genes. Humans have 23,000 genes. The genes show that the ants are more closely related to humans than was previously known.
“We found genes that have some longevity to humans,” Mutti said. “We can understand the ant’s behavior due to the life span and the health span of the organisms.”
Roberto Bonasio, a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Biochemistry at NYU Langone Medical Center, is one of the lead authors of the study and is knowledgeable on the process of sequencing the ants.
The Jerdon’s jumping ant has more of an ancient social structure because they live in small colonies, Bonasio said. When the queen dies, the workers fight for the spot as a replacement queen. Some workers can mate and fertilize eggs like the queen ant.
He said the Florida carpenter ants’ social structure is more developed because the queen lays eggs and the colony depends on her. When she dies, they die, he said, and the queen ants could live for years whereas the workers can only live for months.
Many people believe that genes can influence behavior in humans and animals, Bonasio said, and the researchers were primarily interested in the insects’ aging and behavior.
“In the future, I hope we can manipulate genes and find out what the mechanisms do,” Bonasio said.
Liebig wanted to study different gene expressions that show ant behaviors and aging in their communities. He has worked with carpenter ants for the past 10 years.
Liebig said carpenter and jumping ants are interesting to work with because they have a complex social behavior. They are also perfect species to study epigenetics because they are easier to maintain in a lab.
Mutti said ants that are in the same species but in different social groups have the same DNA blueprint. However, they have different characteristics due to DNA modifications.
These alterations affect the gene expressions. The researchers looked at the sequences from both ant species to see how these changes affect each ant’s uniqueness.
Liebig and Mutti continue to research ant species, and they hope to find new discoveries of their developments in the future. Liebig said that the ant genome is the foundation for all genetic studies.
“The ant genome is a basis and foundation for all future research,” Liebig said.
Reach the reporter at khillhou@asu.edu
