Mutant Asocial Ant created by Gene Editing

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The team from Rockefeller University published a paper outlining how they removed orco - a gene that plays a key part in an ant’s odor receptors. Deleting the gene by using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique resulted in the ants losing about 90% of their “olfaction”. This made them unable to socialize. The ants also changed in other ways, showing affected behavior. They laid very few eggs, wandered aimlessly, and showed poor parenting.

The other team, including scientists from NYU, Vanderbilt University, University of Pennsylvania, and Arizona State University, also used CRISPR to delete the orco protein in ants to affect their communication through pheromones, causing an "aberrant social behavior and defective neural development."

This kind of interference with the social behavior of ants is considered a success because of the difficulty in altering the nature of insects with such a sophisticated social structure. NYU Professor Claude Desplan, who was involved in one of the studies called the modified ant they created “the first mutant in any social insect.”

“While ant behavior does not directly extend to humans, we believe that this work promises to advance our understanding of social communication, with the potential to shape the design of future research into disorders like schizophrenia, depression or autism that interfere with it,” said Desplan.

•Genetics was established in the ant Harpegnathos saltator
•A mutation in orco reduces ant responses to general odorants
•orco mutant ants display asocial behavior as well as defective reproduction
•orco mutants display disrupted development of ORNs and of their projections