Figure 6. Kr-h1 stabilizes caste identity.
(A) Experiment scheme. The hunting assay was performed in immature workers or gamergates (10 days old). For ovary RNA-seq, the knockdowns were performed in mature individuals (4 months old).
(B) Interactions with crickets trapped in a tube (Gospocic et al., 2017). Bars represent mean + SEM. P-values are from a generalized linear model based on the negative binomial distribution.
(C) RNA-seq from ovaries after Kr-h1 knockdown in the brain of mature workers (left) or gamergates (right). Data are from 5 (worker GFPi), 4 (worker Kr-h1i), 6 (gamergate GFPi), and 7 (gamergate Kr-h1i) replicates.
(D) The MA plot shows differential gene expression in control mature worker and gamergate ovaries. Colors highlight genes derepressed in the ovaries after Kr-h1 knockdown in mature workers (green) or gamergates (blue). P-values are from Fisher’s exact tests for the overlaps.
(E) PCA based on the 2,000 most variable genes in control workers and gamergates. Ovary transcriptomes of mature workers (green) and gamergates (blue) after GFP RNAi were compared to ovaries after Kr-h1 RNAi in the brain of mature workers (top) or gamergates (bottom).