PMID- 12755891
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20040105
LR  - 20190916
IS  - 0962-1083 (Print)
IS  - 0962-1083 (Linking)
VI  - 12
IP  - 6
DP  - 2003 Jun
TI  - Fluorescence in situ hybridization: a new method for determining primary sex 
      ratio in ants.
PG  - 1637-48
AB  - The haplodiploid sex determining system in Hymenoptera, whereby males develop 
      from haploid eggs and females from diploid eggs, allows females to control the 
      primary sex ratio (the proportion of each sex at oviposition) in response to 
      ecological and/or genetic conditions. Surprisingly, primary sex ratio adjustment 
      by queens in eusocial Hymenoptera has been poorly studied, because of 
      difficulties in sexing the eggs laid. Here, we show that fluorescence in situ 
      hybridization (FISH) can be used to accurately determine the sex (haploid or 
      diploid) of eggs, and hence the primary sex ratio, in ants. We first isolated the 
      homologue coding sequences of the abdominal-A gene from 10 species of 8 
      subfamilies of Formicidae. Our data show that the nucleotide sequence of this 
      gene is highly conserved among the different subfamilies. Second, we used a 
      sequence of 4.5 kbp from this gene as a DNA probe for primary sex ratio 
      determination by FISH. Our results show that this DNA probe hybridizes 
      successfully with its complementary DNA sequence in all ant species tested, and 
      allows reliable determination of the sex of eggs. Our proposed method should 
      greatly facilitate empirical tests of primary sex ratio in ants.
FAU - De Menten, L
AU  - De Menten L
AD  - Unite des Communautes Animales - CP160/12, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Avenue. 
      F.D. Roosevelt, 50, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. ldmente@ulb.ac.be
FAU - Niculita, H
AU  - Niculita H
FAU - Gilbert, M
AU  - Gilbert M
FAU - Delneste, D
AU  - Delneste D
FAU - Aron, S
AU  - Aron S
LA  - eng
PT  - Comparative Study
PT  - Journal Article
PL  - England
TA  - Mol Ecol
JT  - Molecular ecology
JID - 9214478
RN  - 0 (Abd-A protein, insect)
RN  - 0 (DNA Primers)
RN  - 0 (Homeodomain Proteins)
SB  - IM
MH  - Analysis of Variance
MH  - Animals
MH  - Ants/*genetics/*physiology
MH  - Chromosome Mapping
MH  - DNA Primers
MH  - Female
MH  - Homeodomain Proteins/genetics
MH  - In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence/*methods
MH  - Male
MH  - Ovum/physiology
MH  - Phylogeny
MH  - Sequence Analysis, DNA
MH  - *Sex Ratio
EDAT- 2003/05/21 05:00
MHDA- 2004/01/06 05:00
CRDT- 2003/05/21 05:00
PHST- 2003/05/21 05:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2004/01/06 05:00 [medline]
PHST- 2003/05/21 05:00 [entrez]
AID - 1827 [pii]
AID - 10.1046/j.1365-294x.2003.01827.x [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Mol Ecol. 2003 Jun;12(6):1637-48. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-294x.2003.01827.x.