PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Mark C Harrison
AU  - Evelien Jongepier
AU  - Hugh M. Robertson
AU  - Nicolas Arning
AU  - Tristan Bitard-Feildel
AU  - Hsu Chao
AU  - Christopher P. Childers
AU  - Huyen Dinh
AU  - Harshavardhan Doddapaneni
AU  - Shannon Dugan
AU  - Johannes Gowin
AU  - Carolin Greiner
AU  - Yi Han
AU  - Haofu Hu
AU  - Daniel S.T. Hughes
AU  - Ann-Kathrin Huylmans
AU  - Carsten Kemena
AU  - Lukas P.M. Kremer
AU  - Sandra L. Lee
AU  - Alberto Lopez-Ezquerra
AU  - Ludovic Mallet
AU  - Jose M. Monroy-Kuhn
AU  - Annabell Moser
AU  - Shwetha C. Murali
AU  - Donna M. Muzny
AU  - Saria Otani
AU  - Maria-Dolors Piulachs
AU  - Monica Poelchau
AU  - Jiaxin Qu
AU  - Florentine Schaub
AU  - Ayako Wada-Katsumata
AU  - Kim C. Worley
AU  - Qiaolin Xie
AU  - Guillem Ylla
AU  - Michael Poulsen
AU  - Richard A. Gibbs
AU  - Coby Schal
AU  - Stephen Richards
AU  - Xavier Belles
AU  - Judith Korb
AU  - Erich Bornberg-Bauer
TI  - Hemimetabolous genomes reveal molecular basis of termite eusociality
AID  - 10.1101/181909
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 181909
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/29/181909.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/29/181909.full
AB  - Around 150 million years ago, eusocial termites evolved from within the cockroaches, 50 million years before eusocial Hymenoptera, such as bees and ants, appeared. Here, we report the first, 2GB genome of a cockroach, Blattella germanica, and the 1.3GB genome of the drywood termite, Cryptotermes secundus. We show evolutionary signatures of termite eusociality by comparing the genomes and transcriptomes of three termites and the cockroach against the background of 16 other eusocial and non-eusocial insects. Dramatic adaptive changes in genes underlying the production and perception of pheromones confirm the importance of chemical communication in the termites. These are ac-companied by major changes in gene regulation and the molecular evolution of caste determination. Many of these results parallel molecular mechanisms of eusocial evolution in Hymenoptera. However, the specific solutions are remarkably different, thus revealing a striking case of convergence in one of the major evolutionary transitions in biological complexity.