Proteinaceous Venom Expression of the Yellow Meadow Ant, Lasius flavus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract

Ants are one of the important groups of venomous animals with about 14,000 described species. Studies so far focused on the discovery of venom proteins are only available for limited stinging ants, and the proteinaceous compositions of the stingless ants are completely unknown. Here, we used the transcriptomic approach to identify venom components from the yellow meadow ant, Lasius flavus, a stingless ant. The transcriptomic analysis yielded an extraordinary simplicity of the venom expression profile, with 17 venom proteins, such as phospholipase B, odorant binding protein, and apolipoprotein D. Ten of them were discovered as novel toxins for future functional investigations. Quantitative real time PCR analysis revealed that genes encoding the identified venom proteins display exclusively or highly expression profiles in venom glands, validating them as venom compositions. Our findings contribute to the understanding of the evolutional diversity of toxins between stinging and stingless ants.