Data from: A gene associated with social immunity in the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides

Some group-living species exhibit social immunity, where the immune response of one individual can protect others in the group from infection. In burying beetles this is part of parental care. Larvae feed on vertebrate carcasses which their parents smear with exudates that inhibit microbial growth. We have sequenced the transcriptome of the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides and identified six genes that encode lysozymes – a type of antimicrobial enzyme that has previously been implicated in social immunity in burying beetles. When females start breeding and producing antimicrobial anal exudates, we found that the expression of one of these genes was increased by ~1000 times to become one of the most abundant transcripts in the transcriptome. Females varied considerably in the antimicrobial properties of their anal exudates, and this was strongly correlated with the expression of this lysozyme. We conclude that we have likely identified a gene encoding a key effector molecule in social immunity, and that it was recruited during evolution from a function in personal immunity.

部分群居物种展现出社会免疫（social immunity）现象：单个个体的免疫应答可保护群体内其他个体免受感染。在埋葬甲中，社会免疫属于育幼行为的一部分。该类昆虫的幼虫以脊椎动物尸体为食，其双亲会在尸体表面涂抹可抑制微生物生长的分泌物。我们对埋葬甲（Nicrophorus vespilloides）的转录组（transcriptome）进行了测序，并鉴定出6个编码溶菌酶（lysozyme）的基因——溶菌酶是一类抗菌酶，此前研究已证实其参与埋葬甲的社会免疫过程。当雌性个体开始繁殖并分泌具有抗菌活性的肛部分泌物时，我们发现其中一个溶菌酶基因的表达量上调了约1000倍，成为该转录组中丰度最高的转录本之一。不同雌性个体的肛部分泌物抗菌活性存在显著差异，且这一差异与该溶菌酶的表达水平呈强相关性。综上，我们推测已成功鉴定出社会免疫中的关键效应分子编码基因，且该基因在演化过程中从个体免疫功能被招募至社会免疫通路中。