Antimicrobial wound care in an ant society

Abstract

Infected wounds pose a major mortality risk in animals. Injuries are common in the ant Megaponera analis which raids pugnacious prey. Here we show that M. analis can determine when wounds are infected and treat them specifically. By applying a variety of antimicrobial compounds and proteins secreted from the metapleural gland to infected wounds, workers reduce the mortality of infected individuals by 90%. Chemical analyses showed that wound infection is associated with specific changes in the cuticular hydrocarbon profile thereby likely allowing nestmates to diagnose the infection state of injured individuals and apply the appropriate antimicrobial treatment. This study demonstrates that the targeted use of antimicrobials to treat infected wounds, previously thought to be a uniquely human behavior, has evolved in insect societies as well.One-Sentence SummaryAnts use antimicrobial compounds and proteins to successfully treat the infected wounds of nestmates.

Targeted treatment of injured nestmates with antimicrobial compounds in an ant society

“…The proteomics data generated in this study have been deposited at the ProteomeXchange Consortium via the PRIDE partner repository under accession code PXD033003. The CHC and MG data generated via GC-MS in this study have been deposited at the Dryad repository under the https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hqbzkh1j6 [https://datadryad.org/stash/share/gFLLhPMhmWW8HJ_JaKyTqg9Eq3 QXqGS_EgxYEQvKKe8] 60 . The Genome Assembly data are available under restricted access due to it being part of another Publication within the GAGA Project 47 , access can be obtained by contacting the corresponding Author of the GAGA Project.…”

Evolution and impact of socially transferred materials

“…This easily leaves the taxon-specific, fast evolving and novel genes unidentified, and creates a risk of misinterpreting their function. For example, Megaponera analis ants use the contents of their metapleural glands to disinfect the wounds of nestmates, and the most abundant protein in this social transfer has no orthology to any known protein, indicating a very young gene [145]. In addition to species-level comparisons, inspecting population-level variation [28] would allow testing population genetic models of genes with indirect fitness effects [146].…”