Tachykinin signaling inhibits task-specific behavioral responsiveness in honeybee workers
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Evaluation Summary:
The authors provide convincing evidence that tachykinin signaling is involved in regulating response thresholds of task-specific stimuli only in the respective behavioral specialist. For example tachykinin signaling affects responses to pollen in pollen foragers and responses to larval chemical cues only in nurse bees. The study highlights the importance of peptide signaling in social behaviors in insects for the first time.
(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)
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Abstract
Behavioral specialization is key to the success of social insects and leads to division of labor among colony members. Response thresholds to task-specific stimuli are thought to proximally regulate behavioral specialization, but their neurobiological regulation is complex and not well understood. Here, we show that response thresholds to task-relevant stimuli correspond to the specialization of three behavioral phenotypes of honeybee workers in the well-studied and important Apis mellifera and Apis cerana . 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 confirm a functional role of tachykinin signaling in regulating specific responsiveness of honeybee workers: TRP2 injection and RNAi-mediated downregulation 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.
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Joint Public Review:
Worker bees perform specialised tasks: young workers nurse larvae, older ones forage for either nectar or pollen. Behaviours - including these specialist ones - arise when a stimulus (nectar, pollen or larvae) exceeds a certain 'response threshold' of the organism. This threshold can be modulated by neuropeptides to alter behaviour.
The study first shows that response thresholds to task-related stimuli differ among nurse bees, nectar and pollen foragers. Pollen foragers are most responsive to sucrose and pollen, and nurse bees most responsive to chemical stimuli of larvae. Then, taking a proteomic approach, they identify a neuropeptide, Tachykinin related protein (TRP), to be expressed in a task-specific pattern: low in nurse bees and highest in the nectar foragers.
This work provides valuable resource information …
Joint Public Review:
Worker bees perform specialised tasks: young workers nurse larvae, older ones forage for either nectar or pollen. Behaviours - including these specialist ones - arise when a stimulus (nectar, pollen or larvae) exceeds a certain 'response threshold' of the organism. This threshold can be modulated by neuropeptides to alter behaviour.
The study first shows that response thresholds to task-related stimuli differ among nurse bees, nectar and pollen foragers. Pollen foragers are most responsive to sucrose and pollen, and nurse bees most responsive to chemical stimuli of larvae. Then, taking a proteomic approach, they identify a neuropeptide, Tachykinin related protein (TRP), to be expressed in a task-specific pattern: low in nurse bees and highest in the nectar foragers.
This work provides valuable resource information on the abundance of brain neuropeptides in two species of bees. The study is exceptional in its breath of techniques used and the addition of manipulative experiments which are difficult to do in honey bees. Through their studies the authors identify a neuropeptide that modulates response thresholds of bees.
The study would have been exceptional if the authors had included studies on the expression of the tachykinin receptor. The level of tachykinin expression increases between nurse bees and foragers, but does not involve changes in spatial expression (Takeuchi et al., 2004 ref. 56). So, it is likely that the specificity of the effects of tachykinin are due to differences in the spatial expression of the receptor.
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Evaluation Summary:
The authors provide convincing evidence that tachykinin signaling is involved in regulating response thresholds of task-specific stimuli only in the respective behavioral specialist. For example tachykinin signaling affects responses to pollen in pollen foragers and responses to larval chemical cues only in nurse bees. The study highlights the importance of peptide signaling in social behaviors in insects for the first time.
(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)
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