Regulation of soldier caste differentiation by microRNAs in Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki)

He Du; Runmei Huang; Da-Song Chen; Tianyong Zhuang; Xueyi Huang; Huan Zhang; Zhiqiang Li

doi:10.7717/peerj.16843

Regulation of soldier caste differentiation by microRNAs in Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki)

PeerJ. 2024 Feb 29:12:e16843. doi: 10.7717/peerj.16843. eCollection 2024.

Authors

He Du¹, Runmei Huang¹, Da-Song Chen¹, Tianyong Zhuang¹, Xueyi Huang¹, Huan Zhang², Zhiqiang Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Key Laboratory of Integrated Pest Management in Agriculture, Guangdong Public Laboratory of Wild Animal Conservation and Utilization, Institute of Zoology, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

The soldier caste is one of the most distinguished castes inside the termite colony. The mechanism of soldier caste differentiation has mainly been studied at the transcriptional level, but the function of microRNAs (miRNAs) in soldier caste differentiation is seldom studied. In this study, the workers of Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki were treated with methoprene, a juvenile hormone analog which can induce workers to transform into soldiers. The miRNomes of the methoprene-treated workers and the controls were sequenced. Then, the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEmiRs) were corrected with the differentially expressed genes DEGs to construct the DEmiR-DEG regulatory network. Afterwards, the DEmiR-regulated DEGs were subjected to GO enrichment and KEGG enrichment analysis. A total of 1,324 miRNAs were identified, among which 116 miRNAs were screened as DEmiRs between the methoprene-treated group and the control group. A total of 4,433 DEmiR-DEG pairs were obtained. No GO term was recognized as significant in the cellular component, molecular function, or biological process categories. The KEGG enrichment analysis of the DEmiR-regulated DEGs showed that the ribosome biogenesis in eukaryotes and circadian rhythm-fly pathways were enriched. This study demonstrates that DEmiRs and DEGs form a complex network regulating soldier caste differentiation in termites.

Keywords: Juvenile hormone; Noncoding RNA; Polyphenism; Post-transcriptional regulation.

MeSH terms

Animals
Circadian Rhythm
Control Groups
Isoptera* / genetics
Methoprene
MicroRNAs* / genetics

Substances

Methoprene
MicroRNAs

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31702068), GDAS Project of Science and Technology Development (Grant No. 2019GDASYL-0104018), Project of State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, IOZ-CAS (IPM2211), and GIZ grant (GIABR-gjrc201601). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.