Social Behavior of Carpenter Ants Reprogrammed with Epigenetic Drugs

Scientists have managed to reprogram the social behaviors in carpenter ants with the help of epigenetic drugs. Scientists have found that caste-specific behaviors in ants are not set in stone and instead can be reprogrammed.

Epigenetics is the study of stable, or persistent, changes in gene expression that occur without changes in DNA sequence. Epigenetic regulation has been observed to affect a variety of distinct traits in animals, including body size, aging, and behavior. However, there is an enormous gap in knowledge about the epigenetic mechanisms that regulate social behavior.

Ants are actually the perfect organism to study since each colony is comprised of thousands of individual sisters. The queen and all the workers are all female, and have nearly identical genetic makeup, much like human twins. However, these sisters possess stereotypically distinct physical traits and behaviors based on caste.

In this latest study, the researchers found that caste-specific foraging behavior can be directly altered, by changing the balance of epigenetic chemicals called acetyl groups attached to histone protein complexes, around which DNA strands are wrapped in a cell nucleus. To reveal this control, the scientists demonstrated that foraging behavior could be reprogrammed using compounds that inhibit the addition or removal of these acetyl groups on histones, in turn changing the expression of nearby genes.

"The results suggest that behavioral malleability in ants, and likely other animals, may be regulated in an epigenetic manner via histone modification," said Daniel F. Simola, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The findings are published in the journal Science.

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