title: Acute and chronic gregarisation are associated with distinct DNA methylation fingerprints in desert locusts.
abstract: Desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) show a dramatic form of socially induced phenotypic plasticity known as phase polyphenism. In the absence of conspecifics, locusts occur in a shy and cryptic solitarious phase. Crowding with conspecifics drives a behavioural transformation towards gregariousness that occurs within hours and is followed by changes in physiology, colouration and morphology, resulting in the full gregarious phase syndrome. We analysed methylation-sensitive amplified fragment length polymorphisms (MS-AFLP) to compare the effect of acute and chronic crowding on DNA methylation in the central nervous system. We find that crowd-reared and solitary-reared locusts show markedly different neural MS-AFLP fingerprints. However, crowding for a day resulted in neural MS-AFLP fingerprints that were clearly distinct from both crowd-reared and uncrowded solitary-reared locusts. Our results indicate that changes in DNA methylation associated with behavioural gregarisation proceed through intermediate states that are not simply partial realisations of the endpoint states.
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.
authors.forename: Eamonn B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Mallon
authors.affiliation: Academic Unit of Cancer Genomics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
authors.forename: Harindra E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Amarasinghe
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK.
authors.forename: Swidbert R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Ott
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D054458:Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D003441:Crowding; D016172:DNA Fingerprinting; D019175:DNA Methylation; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D006110:Grasshoppers / Q000502:physiology*; D008018:Life Cycle Stages / Q000235:genetics*; D010641:Phenotype; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic; D012919:Social Behavior