| Title: | Adult Influence on Juvenile Phenotypes by Stage-Specific Pheromone Production |
| Author(s): | Werner MS; Claassen MH; Renahan T; Dardiry M; Sommer RJ; |
| Address: | "Department of Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tubingen 72076, Germany. Department of Evolutionary Biology, Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Tubingen 72076, Germany. Electronic address: ralf.sommer@tuebingen.mpg.de" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.isci.2018.11.027 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 2589-0042 (Electronic) 2589-0042 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Many animal and plant species respond to population density by phenotypic plasticity. To investigate if specific age classes and/or cross-generational signaling affect density-dependent plasticity, we developed a dye-based method to differentiate co-existing nematode populations. We applied this method to Pristionchus pacificus, which develops a predatory mouth form to exploit alternative resources and kill competitors in response to high population densities. Remarkably, adult, but not juvenile, crowding induces the predatory morph in other juveniles. High-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry of secreted metabolites combined with genetic mutants traced this result to the production of stage-specific pheromones. In particular, the P. pacificus-specific di-ascaroside#1 that induces the predatory morph is induced in the last juvenile stage and young adults, even though mouth forms are no longer plastic in adults. Cross-generational signaling between adults and juveniles may serve as an indication of rapidly increasing population size, arguing that age classes are an important component of phenotypic plasticity" |
| Keywords: | Cell Biology Developmental Biology Genetics Physiology; |
| Notes: | "PubMed-not-MEDLINEWerner, Michael S Claassen, Marc H Renahan, Tess Dardiry, Mohannad Sommer, Ralf J eng 2018/12/05 iScience. 2018 Dec 21; 10:123-134. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2018.11.027. Epub 2018 Nov 20" |
