洛克菲勒大学Daniel J. C. Kronauer小组的研究开发出了古老的进食相关神经肽调控蚂蚁的异亲抚育。相关论文发表在2026年7月8日出版的《自然》杂志上。

通过对神经肽进行无偏见的药理学筛选，课题组研究人员发现两种祖先的摄食调节因子，神经肽F（NPF）和抑化抑素A (AstA)，调节克隆攻击蚁的育雏行为。通过功能操作，该团队发现NPF增加了育婴行为，而AstA则有相反的效果。

此外，研究组发现，随着蚂蚁年龄的增长，大脑中NPF和AstA的水平会自然变化，这表明这些变化是与年龄相关的育婴行为变化的基础。最后，研究团队表明，与独居物种一样，NPF和AstA对营养状态仍然敏感，营养状态相应地影响育雏行为。他们的研究结果表明，进化已经选择了调节祖先喂养的分子机制，以实现合作育雏和与年龄相关的劳动分工。

据悉，异亲代抚育和劳动分工是昆虫社会的特征。群居工蜂通常在幼年时在巢内照顾后代，在它们2岁、3岁、4岁和5岁时过渡到巢外觅食。这为研究育儿和年龄相关行为变化的神经基础提供了一个强有力的范例。尽管先前的研究已经探究了这些动力学的各个方面，但潜在的神经和分子机制仍然知之甚少。

附：英文原文

Title: Ancient feeding-related neuropeptides regulate alloparenting in ants

Author: Paul, Alexander, Kay, Tomas, Lacroix, Ivan, Chandra, Vikram, Gal, Asaf, Piekarski, Patrick K., Valds-Rodrguez, Stephany, Ritger, Amelia L., Lee, Katelyn S., Lacy, Kip D., Kronauer, Daniel J. C.

Issue&Volume: 2026-07-08

Abstract: Alloparental care and division of labour are hallmarks of insect societies1. Social insect workers typically care for brood within the nest when they are young and transition to foraging outside the nest as they age2,3,4,5. This provides a powerful paradigm to study the neural basis of parenting and age-related behavioural change. Although previous work has interrogated aspects of these dynamics6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14, the underlying neural and molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, using an unbiased pharmacological screen of neuropeptides, we show that two ancestral regulators of feeding, neuropeptide F (NPF) and allatostatin A (AstA), modulate brood-care behaviour in the clonal raider ant. Through functional manipulations, we show that NPF increases brood-care behaviour, whereas AstA has the opposite effect. Furthermore, we find that the levels of NPF and AstA in the brain change naturally as ants age, suggesting that these changes underlie the age-related changes in brood-care behaviour. Finally, we show that, as in solitary species15,16, NPF and AstA remain sensitive to nutritional state, and nutritional state affects brood-care behaviour accordingly. Our results reveal that evolution has co-opted molecular mechanisms that regulated feeding ancestrally to enable cooperative brood care and age-associated division of labour.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10747-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10747-6