RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Neuromodulation of Behavioral Specialization: Tachykinin Signaling Inhibits Task-specific Behavioral Responsiveness in Honeybee Workers
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.01.12.426394
DO 10.1101/2021.01.12.426394
A1 Bin Han
A1 Qiaohong Wei
A1 Fan Wu
A1 Han Hu
A1 Chuan Ma
A1 Lifeng Meng
A1 Xufeng Zhang
A1 Mao Feng
A1 Yu Fang
A1 Olav Rueppell
A1 Jianke Li
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/13/2021.01.12.426394.abstract
AB Behavioral specialization is key to the success of social insects and often compartmentalized among colony members leading to division of labor. Response thresholds to task-specific stimuli proximally regulate behavioral specialization but their neurobiological regulation is not understood. Here, we show that response thresholds to task-relevant stimuli correspond to the specialization of three behavioral phenotypes of honeybee workers. Quantitative neuropeptidome comparisons suggest two tachykinin-related peptides (TRP2 and TRP3) as candidates for the modification of these response thresholds. Based on our characterization of their receptor binding and downstream signaling, we then confirm the functional role of tachykinins: TRP2 injection and RNAi cause consistent, opposite effects on responsiveness to task-specific stimuli of each behaviorally specialized phenotype but not to stimuli that are unrelated to their tasks. Thus, our study demonstrates that TRP-signaling regulates the degree of task-specific responsiveness of specialized honeybee workers and may control the context-specificity of behavior in animals more generally.