Pheromones queen

The use of pheromones by ants to control the behavior and reproduction of workers has not been investigated so successfully as the analogous pheromones in honey bees and termites (Wilson, 1971). Most ant queens are highly attractive to their workers the source of the attractant in Solenopsis invicta has been identified as the poison sac (Vandermeer et al., 1980). In the same species, Fletcher and Blum (1981) have demonstrated the presence of a non-volatile pheromone in the queen, which is transferred around the colony by the workers, and inhibits dealation and obgenesis in the virgin females in the same nest. 

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The queen is usually reproductively dominant within the colony and uses chemical cues as both primer and releaser pheromones to suppress the production or fecundity of other sexuals, inhibit reproduction by worker castes, modulate reproductive behaviors (e.g., inhibit swarming and orient swarms), attract males, regulate worker tasks and worker ontogeny, and produce host repellents in slave-making species. Considering the importance of queen semiochemicals in social hymenoptera, few queen pheromones have been chemically identified. The queens of most social hymenopteran colonies are attractive to workers, allowing them to be properly tended as well as to facilitate the dissemination of other pheromone cues. However, the retinue pheromone has been chemically identified in very few species. In the 1980s, queen pheromone components were identified in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta [91,92], and in the Pharaoh s ant, Monomoriumpharaonis [93]. 

Slessor KN,Foster LJ,Winston ML (1998) Royal flavours honeybee queen pheromones. In Vander Meer RK, Breed MD, Espelie KE, Winston ML (eds) Pheromone communication in social insects ants, wasps, bees and termites. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado 331... 

Queen pheromones ant alkaloids, lactones, pyrones, sesquiterpenes, pentadecene Cruz-Lopez etal. (2001)... 

Pankiw T., Winston M. L., Fondrk M. K. and Slessor K. N. (2000) Selection on worker honeybee responses to queen pheromone (Apis mellifera L.). Naturwissenschaften 87, 487 190. 

Danty E., Briand L., Michard-Vanhee C., Perez V., Arnold G. and Gaudemer O., Huet D., Huet J. C., Ouali C., Masson C. and Pernollet J. C. (1999) Cloning and expression of a queen pheromone-binding protein in the honeybee an olfactory-specific, developmentally regulated protein. J. Neurosci. 19, 7468-7475. 

Queen pheromone-binding protein (antenna-specific protein 1, ASP1) sequenced AF166496 ... 

Keller, L. and Nonacs, P. (1993). The role of queen pheromones in social insects - Queen control or queen Signal. Animal Behav., 45, 787-794. 

Vargo, E. L. and Hulsey, C. D. (2000). Multiple glandular origins of queen pheromones in the fire ant Solenopsis invicta. J. Insect Physiol., 46,1151-1159. 

Boulay, R., Hefetz, A., Cerda, X., Devers, S., Francke, W., Twele, R. and Lenoir, A. (2007). Production of sexuals in a fission-performing ant dual effects of queen pheromones and colony size. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol., 61, 1531-1541. 

Slessor, K.N., Foster, L. J. and Winston, M. L. (1998). Royal flavours honey bee queen pheromones. In Pheromone Communication in Social Insects - Ants, Wasps, Bees, and Termites, ed. R. K. Vander Meer, M. D. Breed, K. E. Espelie and M.L. Winston. Boulder, CO Westview Press, pp. 331-343. 

Producte of normal metabolism, particularly those of the fatty acid and isoprenoid pathways, were modified by a few pheromone gland-specific enzymes to produce the myriad of pheromone molecules. The elegant work of the Roelofs laboratory [21] demonstrated that many of the lepidopteran pheromones could be formed by the appropriate interplay of highly selective chain shortening of fatty acids and a unique delta-11 desaturase enzyme followed by modification of the carboxyl carbon (see Fig. 5). Chain shortening of fatty acids is also involved in producing the queen pheromone in honeybees [69, 70]. 

Schmidt, J.O., Slessor, N. and Winston, M. (1993). Roles of Nasanov and queen pheromones in attraction of honeybee swarms. Naturwissenschaften 80, 573-575. 

In social insect and social mammal species such as honey bees and naked mole rats, only one female reproduces. In social insects, queen pheromone signals may be honest cooperative signals, not control. Might these ideas apply to social mammals ... 

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