NIH R01 · 2024
Epigenetic regulation of extreme longevity differences in ant castes
ABSTRACT Ants exhibit highly evolved eusocial behaviors including stark division of labor among female castes, where the queen carries out all reproduction and worker castes forage for food and defend the colony. Interestingly, and of great relevance to aging research, sterile workers are shorter-lived, with variable lifespans between distinct castes. Reproductive queens are long-lived, with lifespans differing three to ten-fold between queen and worker. Remarkably, the genomes of the sterile and reproductive castes are nearly identical, and thus differences in lifespan and behavior arise from non-genetic mechanisms. We investigate two species of ants, each with advantages for study of…
From the public funding record at NIH RePORTER. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.