In many animals, including ants, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) ensures normal brain function by controlling the movement of various substances in and out of the brain. Researchers reporting in the journal Cell on September 7 have made the unexpected discovery that the BBB in carpenter ants plays an active role in controlling behavior that's essential to the function of entire ant colonies. The key is production in the BBB of a particular hormone-degrading enzyme.
Juvenile hormone esterase , which degrades Juvenile Hormone ," says Karl Glastad, the co-lead author along with Linyang Ju, both in the lab of senior author Shelley Berger in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
JH3 hormone is known to promote foraging among social insect workers. Different types of worker ants within the same colony do very different"jobs." The new findings show that this results, in part, from different levels of the JH3-degrading enzyme in their BBB, leading to different levels of the hormone JH3 in the brain.
The researchers made the discovery after applying single-cell RNA sequencing to understand differences in gene activity across cells in the brain in two ant behavioral castes: foragers and soldiers. Their analysis revealed that the gene encoding Jhe, the degrading enzyme for the hormone JH3, was found only in BBB cells. It also showed striking differences between the BBB cells of foragers and soldiers. They wanted to know more about what it meant for ant behavior.
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