日前,，來自丹麥哥本哈根大學,、深圳華大基因研究院的國際研究小組共同主導完成了切葉蟻(Acromyrmex echinatior)的基因組測序與分析工作。此成果為社會行為學等研究奠定了重要的遺傳學基礎(chǔ),。該研究成果已在國際知名雜志Genome Research (www.genome.org)上在線發(fā)表,。
農(nóng)業(yè)的發(fā)展在人類文化進化過程中具有非常重要的意義,但是人類并不是唯一采用這種生活方式的生物，在中美洲,、南美洲以及美國南部,有一種螞蟻同樣能夠進行農(nóng)業(yè)生產(chǎn),。通過對切葉蟻全基因組測序及分析,，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)在切葉蟻的基因組中有兩個基因家族發(fā)生了顯著擴張，這也是研究報告中最重要的發(fā)現(xiàn)之一,。哥本哈根大學社會進化中心的Sanne Nygaard博士說：“我們認為這些基因與該物種的生殖方式和其與真菌所形成的特殊共生關(guān)系具有密切關(guān)聯(lián),。與該切葉蟻生殖方式和共生方式的進化相關(guān)的特定基因組特征的發(fā)現(xiàn)是本項工作的一個重要突破。”（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦原文出處;
Genome Research doi:10.1101/gr.121392.111
The genome of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior suggests key adaptations to advanced social life and fungus farming
Sanne Nygaard, Guojie Zhang, Morten Schitt, Cai Li, Yannick Wurm, Haofu Hu, Jiajian Zhou, Lu Ji, Feng Qiu, Morten Rasmussen, Hailin Pan, Frank Hauser, Anders Krogh, Cornelis J.P. Grimmelikhuijzen, Jun Wang and Jacobus J. Boomsma
We present a high-quality (>100 ×depth) Illumina genome sequence of the leaf-cutting ant Acromyrmex echinatior, a model species for symbiosis and reproductive conflict studies. We compare this genome with three previously sequenced genomes of ants from different subfamilies and focus our analyses on aspects of the genome likely to be associated with known evolutionary changes. The first is the specialized fungal diet of A. echinatior, where we find gene loss in the ant's arginine synthesis pathway, loss of detoxification genes, and expansion of a group of peptidase proteins. One of these is a unique ant-derived contribution to the fecal fluid, which otherwise consists of “garden manuring” fungal enzymes that are unaffected by ant digestion. The second is multiple mating of queens and ejaculate competition, which may be associated with a greatly expanded nardilysin-like peptidase gene family. The third is sex determination, where we could identify only a single homolog of the feminizer gene. As other ants and the honeybee have duplications of this gene, we hypothesize that this may partly explain the frequent production of diploid male larvae in A. echinatior. The fourth is the evolution of eusociality, where we find a highly conserved ant-specific profile of neuropeptide genes that may be related to caste determination. These first analyses of the A. echinatior genome indicate that considerable genetic changes are likely to have accompanied the transition from hunter-gathering to agricultural food production 50 million years ago, and the transition from single to multiple queen mating 10 million years ago.
