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Columns::December 3, 2001
Commencing the rest of their lives: 1,400 are expected to participate in fall graduation
Room at the top
Breaking up is hard to do
Campus News
Newly found protein in fire ants may offer control mechanism
By Sharon Omahen
somahen@griffin.peachnet.edu
UGA scientists have discovered a protein in fire ants that may lead to a new way of using their own biology against them. The
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| Using funding from the National Science Foundation, entomologist Ken Ross (above) and Michael Krieger, an expert in the molecular biology of ants, isolated a protein found only in multiple-queen colonies of fire ants. Photo by Paul Efland |
protein is linked to the senses of smell and taste in imported red fire ants. Published in the online version of Science last month, the research also will be published in the print version of the journal early next year.
“We discovered two variants of a protein found in fire ants and noticed that one was found only in multiple-queen colonies,” says Ken Ross, an entomologist with the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “That’s what peaked our interest two and a half years ago. It made us wonder whether this protein could affect the social behavior and structure of the colony.”
To unravel the mysteries of this unfamiliar protein, UGA sought funding from the National Science Foundation and hired Michael Krieger, an evolutionary biologist who had been at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Krieger, an expert in the molecular biology of ants, began working to sequence the protein gene.
“I isolated the protein and used this information to determine the DNA sequence of the gene,” he says. “Once I got the gene, then we could really get to work.”
Krieger and Ross cross-referenced the protein’s DNA with other DNA sequences in a national data bank.
“We were able to find similar proteins, and that’s how we deduced that this particular protein is a type of odorant-binding protein,” Ross says.
The DNA sequence revealed that the protein is related to the ants’ senses of taste and smell.
“We found that this protein allows the ant to capture odors from its environment and transport them to the neuroreceptor,” Krieger says. “Basically, it helps the ant sense its environment.”
Ants use their senses of smell and taste to regulate the number of queens in colonies and thus control the social structure.
“We don’t know how the protein affects the abilities of different ants to smell and taste,” Ross says. “But we know that the ants smell and taste queens, recognize them individually and either accept or not accept them as egg-laying queens. And now we’ve discovered a protein that is likely involved in this process.”
As with most scientific research, the outcome could have been much different. “It could have turned out to be a protein that regulates the numbers of segments in the ants’ antenna and that wouldn’t have been useful,” Ross says. “As it turned out, it made perfect sense. This doesn’t rule out that there are other genes involved in the ants’ sensory process. There are likely to be. But this one is very important in terms of regulating the social behavior.”
Ross admits this was a risky project. “The probability of finding the gene that codes for this protein was actually very low, so we’re very pleased that it turned out,” he says. “There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong. But, after all, we got the funding from NSF because this project was a risky one.”
The researchers also found the newly identified gene in other fire ants found in South America and the United States.
“It’s a rather general phenomenon we’ve found in fire ants, but it has unbelievable potential,” says Ross.
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