University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2018 Epigenetic Mechanisms Governing Behavioral Reprogramming In The Ant Camponotus Floridanus Riley John Graham University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Genetics Commons, Molecular Biology Commons, and the Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons Recommended Citation Graham, Riley John, "Epigenetic Mechanisms Governing Behavioral Reprogramming In The Ant Camponotus Floridanus" (2018). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2883. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2883 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2883 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Epigenetic Mechanisms Governing Behavioral Reprogramming In The Ant Camponotus Floridanus Abstract Eusocial insect colonies divide behaviors among specialist groups called castes. In some species, caste identity is determined by the interaction of endogenous (e.g. genomic) and exogenous (e.g. juvenile hormone from nurses) signals during larval development, suggesting epigenetic mechanisms underlie plastic traits tied to caste identity. Previous work demonstrated a link between patterns of histone H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac) and caste-specific gene expression in Major and Minor workers of the ant Camponotus floridanus, and we hypothesized caste-specific behaviors such as foraging may be similarly regulated by histone acetylation.