CSB Cutting Lecture Series: “Epigenetics of brain plasticity and behavioral reprogramming in ants” Roberto Bonasio, PhD, February 7, 2025, Munzer Auditorium!
The Department of Chemical and Systems Biology Presents
Cutting Lecture Series
Roberto Bonasio, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology
University of Pennsylvania
Friday, February 7, 2025
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM (Pacific Time)
Munzer Auditorium
Talk Title: “Epigenetics of brain plasticity and behavioral reprogramming in ants”
Talk Abstract: Social insects are an ideal system to study gene regulation and epigenetic pathways in the brain because individuals from different castes display dramatic different behaviors despite sharing the same genome.
In the ant Harpegnathos saltator adult workers can become queens via a caste transition that results in germline activation, lifespan extension, and major changes in behavior. As brains of workers transition to queen they display a remarkable degree of molecular and cellular plasticity. At a molecular level, hundreds of coding and noncoding genes are differentially regulated in the brain, suggesting that transcriptional reprogramming contributes to the observed changes in behavior. Among these, we discovered a transcription factor that maintains caste identity by repressing genes from the opposite caste. At a cellular level, we found that neuroprotective glia cells expand as workers become queens, likely contributing to their extended lifespan, and that a population of neurons in the mushroom body also increases in relative frequency after the transition.
We are now beginning to decipher the contribution of epigenetic pathways by profiling gene expression, chromatin structure, DNA modifications, and chromosome folding in the brains from the two castes using bulk and single-cell multi-omic approaches. Our results reveal the changes in gene expression and chromatin reorganization that accompany brain remodeling and behavioral reprogramming in Harpegnathos.