Socially regulated genes display hyper-connectivity to enhancers in the ant brain [CUT&Tag and ATAC-seq]

Adult workers can elevate their social status in the colony and become dominant reproductives, called "gamergates". This transition in social caste is accompanied by extensive transcriptional and cellular changes in the brain.

To uncover the chromatin mechanisms underlying this remarkable display of adult brain plasticity, we generated a comprehensive epigenomic atlas of the Harpegnathos brain, characterizing the chromatin accessibility, histone modifications, and 3D genome architecture. We annotated putative enhancers, refined the genome assembly, and linked distal enhancers to their gene targets. We identified several known and novel architectural transcription factors that likely support chromatin looping in different genomic contexts.