RT Journal
A1 Simola, Daniel F.
A1 Wissler, Lothar
A1 Donahue, Greg
A1 Waterhouse, Robert M.
A1 Helmkampf, Martin
A1 Roux, Julien
A1 Nygaard, Sanne
A1 Glastad, Karl M.
A1 Hagen, Darren E.
A1 Viljakainen, Lumi
A1 Reese, Justin T.
A1 Hunt, Brendan G.
A1 Graur, Dan
A1 Elhaik, Eran
A1 Kriventseva, Evgenia V.
A1 Wen, Jiayu
A1 Parker, Brian J.
A1 Cash, Elizabeth
A1 Privman, Eyal
A1 Childers, Christopher P.
A1 Muñoz-Torres, Monica C.
A1 Boomsma, Jacobus J.
A1 Bornberg-Bauer, Erich
A1 Currie, Cameron R.
A1 Elsik, Christine G.
A1 Suen, Garret
A1 Goodisman, Michael A.D.
A1 Keller, Laurent
A1 Liebig, Jürgen
A1 Rawls, Alan
A1 Reinberg, Danny
A1 Smith, Chris D.
A1 Smith, Chris R.
A1 Tsutsui, Neil
A1 Wurm, Yannick
A1 Zdobnov, Evgeny M.
A1 Berger, Shelley L.
A1 Gadau, Jürgen
T1 Social insect genomes exhibit dramatic evolution in gene composition and regulation while preserving regulatory features linked to sociality
JF Genome Research 
JO Genome Research 
YR 2013 
FD August 01 
VO 23 
IS 8 
SP 1235 
OP 1247 
DO 10.1101/gr.155408.113 
UL http://genome.cshlp.org/content/23/8/1235.abstract 
AB Genomes of eusocial insects code for dramatic examples of phenotypic plasticity and social organization. We compared the genomes of seven ants, the honeybee, and various solitary insects to examine whether eusocial lineages share distinct features of genomic organization. Each ant lineage contains ∼4000 novel genes, but only 64 of these genes are conserved among all seven ants. Many gene families have been expanded in ants, notably those involved in chemical communication (e.g., desaturases and odorant receptors). Alignment of the ant genomes revealed reduced purifying selection compared with Drosophila without significantly reduced synteny. Correspondingly, ant genomes exhibit dramatic divergence of noncoding regulatory elements; however, extant conserved regions are enriched for novel noncoding RNAs and transcription factor–binding sites. Comparison of orthologous gene promoters between eusocial and solitary species revealed significant regulatory evolution in both cis (e.g., Creb) and trans (e.g., fork head) for nearly 2000 genes, many of which exhibit phenotypic plasticity. Our results emphasize that genomic changes can occur remarkably fast in ants, because two recently diverged leaf-cutter ant species exhibit faster accumulation of species-specific genes and greater divergence in regulatory elements compared with other ants or Drosophila. Thus, while the “socio-genomes” of ants and the honeybee are broadly characterized by a pervasive pattern of divergence in gene composition and regulation, they preserve lineage-specific regulatory features linked to eusociality. We propose that changes in gene regulation played a key role in the origins of insect eusociality, whereas changes in gene composition were more relevant for lineage-specific eusocial adaptations.