Single Gene Shapes the Toil of Ants’ Fighter and Forager Castes

NY Times ^ | March 31, 2009 | NICHOLAS WADE

[neverdem]

Researchers studying the social behavior of ants have found that a single gene underlies both the aggressive behavior of the ant colony’s soldiers and the food gathering behavior of its foraging caste.

The gene is active in soldier ants, particularly in five neurons in the front of their brain, where it generates large amounts of its product, a protein known as PKG. The exact amount of the protein in the ants’ brains is critical to their behavior.

Low levels of PKG predispose both castes of ant to foraging; high levels make the soldiers fight and the foraging caste less interested in food gathering, Christophe Lucas and Marla B. Sokolowski report in the current issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The...

--snip--

Dr. Sokolowski said she was studying the PKG gene in people who have seasonal affective disorder, a condition in which they put on too much weight in the winter and take it off in the summer, with swings of up to 50 pounds. The disorder seems to be correlated with genetic variations in the PKG gene.

Could the drugs used to manipulate PKG levels in ants prove useful in controlling obesity in people? Dr. Sokolowski said that might be possible if the drugs could be delivered just to the brain. PKG plays important roles elsewhere in the body, including the heart, so the drugs would be perilous in the general circulation.

Dr. Robinson said the PKG gene appeared to be one of great versatility, relied on by evolution for tasks relating to feeding behavior in many species. In this respect it seems similar to the FOXP2 gene, which has turned up in communication behaviors from bats to people, or to the PAX6 gene, which has been involved in all of evolution’s many approaches to vision.

[neverdem]

Molecular basis for changes in behavioral state in ant social behaviors

[malkee]

ping for GGG

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks malkee and neverdem. Sounds like a hill of an idea. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·