{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pbio.3002763","title":"An evolutionarily conserved pathway mediated by neuroparsin-A regulates reproductive plasticity in ants","abstract":"<jats:p>Phenotypic plasticity displayed by an animal in response to different environmental conditions is supposedly crucial for its survival and reproduction. The female adults of some ant lineages display phenotypic plasticity related to reproductive role. In pharaoh ant queens, insemination induces substantial physiological/behavioral changes and implicates remarkable gene regulatory network (GRN) shift in the brain. Here, we report a neuropeptide <jats:italic>neuroparsin A</jats:italic> (<jats:italic>NPA</jats:italic>) showing a conserved expression pattern associated with reproductive activity across ant species. Knock-down of <jats:italic>NPA</jats:italic> in unmated queen enhances ovary activity, whereas injection of NPA peptide in fertilized queen suppresses ovary activity. We found that NPA mainly affected the downstream gene <jats:italic>JHBP</jats:italic> in the ovary, which is positively regulated by NPA and suppression of which induces elevated ovary activity, and <jats:italic>shadow</jats:italic> which is negatively regulated by NPA. Furthermore, we show that NPA was also employed into the brain–ovary axis in regulating the worker reproductive changes in other distantly related species, such as <jats:italic>Harpegnathos venator</jats:italic> ants.</jats:p>","journal":"PLOS Biology","year":2024,"id":617691,"datarank":0.4121908796191134,"base_score":2.4849066497880004,"endowment":2.4849066497880004,"self_citation_contribution":0.37273599746820013,"citation_network_contribution":0.039454882150913265,"self_endowment_contribution":0.37273599746820013,"citer_contribution":0.039454882150913265,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":11,"citer_count":11,"citers_with_citation_signal":4,"citers_with_endowment":4,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1593088,"name":"Nianxia Xie","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1593090,"name":"Guo Ding","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1593092,"name":"Dongdong Ning","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":646446,"name":"Wei Dai","orcid":"0009-0005-9812-0493","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":685448,"name":"Zijun Xiong","orcid":"0000-0003-3923-0703","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1593094,"name":"Wenjiang Zhong","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1593095,"name":"Dashuang Zuo","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":913691,"name":"Jie Zhao","orcid":"0000-0001-6536-5834","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":603215,"name":"Pei Zhang","orcid":"0000-0003-4523-4823","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1593096,"name":"Chengyuan Liu","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":625689,"name":"Qiye Li","orcid":"0000-0002-5993-0312","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":238055,"name":"Hao Ran","orcid":"0000-0002-7375-3359","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":199213,"name":"Weiwei Liu","orcid":"0000-0001-5082-9114","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":52580,"name":"Guojie Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-6860-1521","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1593086,"name":"Xiafang Zhang","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"An evolutionarily conserved pathway mediated by neuroparsin-A regulates reproductive plasticity in ants","abstract":"<jats:p>Phenotypic plasticity displayed by an animal in response to different environmental conditions is supposedly crucial for its survival and reproduction. The female adults of some ant lineages display phenotypic plasticity related to reproductive role. In pharaoh ant queens, insemination induces substantial physiological/behavioral changes and implicates remarkable gene regulatory network (GRN) shift in the brain. Here, we report a neuropeptide <jats:italic>neuroparsin A</jats:italic> (<jats:italic>NPA</jats:italic>) showing a conserved expression pattern associated with reproductive activity across ant species. Knock-down of <jats:italic>NPA</jats:italic> in unmated queen enhances ovary activity, whereas injection of NPA peptide in fertilized queen suppresses ovary activity. We found that NPA mainly affected the downstream gene <jats:italic>JHBP</jats:italic> in the ovary, which is positively regulated by NPA and suppression of which induces elevated ovary activity, and <jats:italic>shadow</jats:italic> which is negatively regulated by NPA. Furthermore, we show that NPA was also employed into the brain–ovary axis in regulating the worker reproductive changes in other distantly related species, such as <jats:italic>Harpegnathos venator</jats:italic> ants.</jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":2.4849066497880004,"endowment":2.4849066497880004,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"39133741","pmcid":"PMC11398701","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W4401507695","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","grant_id":"31900399","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","grant_id":"32170631","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","grant_id":"31970573","title":null},{"funder_name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","grant_id":"32388102","title":null},{"funder_name":"New Cornerstone Science Foundation","grant_id":"XPLORER PRIZE","title":null},{"funder_name":"Villum Fonden","grant_id":"00025900","title":null}],"total_grants":6,"fwci":2.0788,"citation_percentile":0.87217254,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2024,"count":2},{"year":2025,"count":6},{"year":2026,"count":3}],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002763","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002763","host_type":"GOLD"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002763","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002763","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39133741","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/11398701","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/ef88bc31c55243efae383e9ee4c4b0f2","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11398701/pdf/pbio.3002763.pdf","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC11398701","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC11398701?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"}],"fields_of_study":["Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research","Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior","Animal Behavior and Reproduction","Medicine","Biology","Environmental Science"],"mesh_terms":["Animals","Ants","Brain","Biological Evolution","Female","Neuropeptides","Ovary","Reproduction","Insect Proteins","Gene Regulatory Networks"],"keywords":["Biology","Ovary","Phenotypic plasticity","Phenotype","Gene","ANT","Cell biology","Genetics","Ecology"],"sdg_mappings":[],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[{"name":"gen"}],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-03T02:24:10.127581Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}