Queens live 30 years longer than workers, but their longevity may be due to the fact that they have a lot of sex.
Frequent sex helps cats produce glucose-regulating insulin to increase lifespan and reproduction, according to new research.
Scientists say the discovery could extend the lifespans of other animals, including humans.
“We hope that this discovery will help us better understand the aging process in many animals,” said lead author Hua Yan, Ph.D., of the University of Florida, USA.
He is also an expert on how ants use pheromones to organize communities.
A general rule in the animal kingdom is that the more babies you have, the sooner you will die. However, only the queen ant reproduces in the nest. They also live 5, 10 or 30 times longer than genetically identical workers.
An American team has achieved a phenomenon that has baffled biologists for decades.
They identified a dual control system for insulin, a hormone associated with metabolism and diabetes.
Queens greatly increases the production of insulin that helps in the development of eggs, while the ovaries produce insulin blockers that slow down the aging process.
Calorie restriction, which reduces insulin production, can extend lifespan in mammals but impair reproduction. Whether we can benefit from partial blockade of the insulin pathway is an open question.
The study, published in Science, focused on a species called Harpegnathos saltator, also known as the Indian fly ant.
In this group of ants, when a queen dies, the remaining workers duel to decide which ant becomes the new pseudo-queen that can lay eggs. The new queen gains more life.
Their behavior provided a perfect system to study how lifespan turns on and off.
The researchers found that since reproduction is an energy-intensive process, the pseudo-queens produce much more insulin, which helps convert food into energy.
“It’s simple. Pseudo-queens are fertile and need insulin,” says Dr. Yan.
The researchers found that insulin normally shortens lifespan, but the lifespan of these ants must be due to insulin signaling in the ants.
Researchers have found this extra layer of control in the form of a protein called Imp-L2 that blocks insulin, slowing down the part of the pathway involved in
Source: Metro
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