Generation of gene expression profiles of nutrition genes using transcriptomic data for Attini ants

• Grant number: 16/17395-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: December 19, 2016
• End date: July 18, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Molecular Genetics and Genetics of Microorganisms
• Principal Investigator: Mauricio Bacci Junior
• Grantee: Milene Ferro
• Supervisor: Ana Victoria Conesa Cegarra
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Centro de Investigación Príncipe Felipe, Spain
• Associated to the scholarship: 14/17950-4 - Genomic evolution underlying the nutritional dependence between ants and fungi, BP.PD

Abstract

Attini ants are dependent upon cultivation of fungi for food. This ancient dependence may have been stimulated by early ant loss of arginine biosynthesis genes, so ants counterbalanced this deficiency by feeding on fungi. Ants specialized in digesting fungal hyphae, continuously increasing expression of positively selected chitinase genes. Other yet unknown ant adaptations to fungiculture are predicted, given the significant amount genome rearrangements and gene expansions seen in attines. Reciprocally, the symbiotic fungi lost a ligninase domain, several carbohydrate-degrading enzymes and the ability to fruit. Currently, no information is available on the mutual regulation of gene expression that mutualists induce on each other. Filling this gap is important for evolutionary studies and also for biotechnological purposes, once the usability of isolated mutualistic fungal cultures on industrial fermentative process remains uncertain. To access information on mutual symbiotic gene regulations, we generated transcriptomes for three Attini species in different phylogenetic positions. In the present BEPE project we propose: (1) to improve the annotation of the obtained transcriptomes; (2) to learn new strategies and tools for gene expression analysis; (3) to generate the expression profile of candidate genes for each ant specie and (4) to compare gene expression in these distinct ant species. With this procedure, we intend to characterize changes in gene expression linked to the evolution of nutritional dependence between Attini ants and mutualistic fungi. (AU)