Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 116, Issue 18, Pages 8950-8959Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900917116
Keywords
social aphid; self-sacrificing gall repair; phenoloxidase; hemocyte; tyrosine
Categories
Funding
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [JP18K06373, JP23770278, JP18770222, JP17H06388]
- Hayashi Memorial Foundation for Female Natural Scientists Research Grant
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Social insects often exhibit striking altruistic behaviors, of which the most spectacular ones may be self-destructive defensive behaviors called autothysis, self-explosion, or suicidal bombing. In the social aphid Nipponaphis monzeni, when enemies damage their plant-made nest called the gall, soldier nymphs erupt to discharge a large amount of body fluid, mix the secretion with their legs, and skillfully plaster it over the plant injury. Dozens of soldiers come out, erupt, mix, and plaster, and the gall breach is promptly sealed with the coagulated body fluid. What molecular and cellular mechanisms underlie the self-sacrificing nest repair with body fluid for the insect society? Here we demonstrate that the body cavity of soldier nymphs is full of highly differentiated large hemocytes that contain huge amounts of lipid droplets and phenoloxidase (PO), whereas their hemolymph accumulates huge amounts of tyrosine and a unique repeat-containing protein (RCP). Upon breakage of the gall, soldiers gather around the breach and massively discharge the body fluid. The large hemocytes rupture and release lipid droplets, which promptly form a lipidic clot, and, concurrently, activated PO converts tyrosine to reactive quinones, which cross-link RCP and other macromolecules to physically reinforce the clot to seal the gall breach. Here, soldiers' humoral and cellular immune mechanisms for wound sealing are extremely up-regulated and utilized for colony defense, which provides a striking case of direct evolutionary connection between individual immunity and social immunity and highlights the importance of exaggeration and cooption of preexisting traits to create evolutionary novelties.
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