January 19, 2022
National Institute for Basic Biology, National Institutes of Natural Sciences
University of Toyama
Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo
Keio University
University of the Ryukyus
Termites are known as pests that damage houses, but they are insects characterized by a sophisticated caste system, making them an excellent research model for studying the evolution of sociality. In a termite colony, individuals with different morphologies and roles—namely, the queen and king, soldiers, and workers—contribute to the prosperity of the colony through division of labor and cooperation. Elucidating the mechanisms that have led to the evolution of such highly advanced sociality is considered one of the major challenges in modern biology.
A research group led by Professor Shuji Shigenobu of the National Institute for Basic Biology, Senior Lecturer Yoshinobu Hayashi of Keio University, Associate Professor Kiyoto Maekawa of the University of Toyama, Professor Toru Miura of The University of Tokyo, and Professor Gaku Tokuda and Researcher Yu Hojo of the University of the Ryukyus has successfully decoded the genome of the Japanese termite *Reticulitermes speratus*, which is widely distributed in Japan, and conducted a large-scale gene expression analysis for each caste. The results revealed that gene duplication has played a crucial role in the evolution of termite sociality. It was found that duplicated genes tend to have different expression patterns among castes. Many of these duplicated genes were found to have functions related to sociality, such as chemical communication, social immunity, and defense. While the idea that gene duplication is a driving force for evolutionary innovation is widely accepted among evolutionary biologists, this study is groundbreaking in that it has demonstrated the link between gene duplication and the evolution of sociality with genome-wide data. Since *Reticulitermes speratus* is also one of the termite species that causes the most damage to houses in Japan, the genomic information obtained in this study is also highly useful as a basis for pest control. These findings were published in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America* (PNAS) on January 19, 2022.
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