--- _id: '616' abstract: - lang: eng text: Social insects protect their colonies from infectious disease through collective defences that result in social immunity. In ants, workers first try to prevent infection of colony members. Here, we show that if this fails and a pathogen establishes an infection, ants employ an efficient multicomponent behaviour − "destructive disinfection" − to prevent further spread of disease through the colony. Ants specifically target infected pupae during the pathogen's non-contagious incubation period, relying on chemical 'sickness cues' emitted by pupae. They then remove the pupal cocoon, perforate its cuticle and administer antimicrobial poison, which enters the body and prevents pathogen replication from the inside out. Like the immune system of a body that specifically targets and eliminates infected cells, this social immunity measure sacrifices infected brood to stop the pathogen completing its lifecycle, thus protecting the rest of the colony. Hence, the same principles of disease defence apply at different levels of biological organisation. article_number: e32073 article_processing_charge: Yes author: - first_name: Christopher full_name: Pull, Christopher id: 3C7F4840-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87 last_name: Pull orcid: 0000-0003-1122-3982 - first_name: Line V full_name: Ugelvig, Line V id: 3DC97C8E-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87 last_name: Ugelvig orcid: 0000-0003-1832-8883 - first_name: Florian full_name: Wiesenhofer, Florian id: 39523C54-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87 last_name: Wiesenhofer - first_name: Anna V full_name: Grasse, Anna V id: 406F989C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87 last_name: Grasse - first_name: Simon full_name: Tragust, Simon id: 35A7A418-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87 last_name: Tragust - first_name: Thomas full_name: Schmitt, Thomas last_name: Schmitt - first_name: Mark full_name: Brown, Mark last_name: Brown - first_name: Sylvia full_name: Cremer, Sylvia id: 2F64EC8C-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87 last_name: Cremer orcid: 0000-0002-2193-3868 citation: ama: Pull C, Ugelvig LV, Wiesenhofer F, et al. Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies. eLife. 2018;7. doi:10.7554/eLife.32073 apa: Pull, C., Ugelvig, L. V., Wiesenhofer, F., Grasse, A. V., Tragust, S., Schmitt, T., … Cremer, S. (2018). Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies. ELife. eLife Sciences Publications. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073 chicago: Pull, Christopher, Line V Ugelvig, Florian Wiesenhofer, Anna V Grasse, Simon Tragust, Thomas Schmitt, Mark Brown, and Sylvia Cremer. “Destructive Disinfection of Infected Brood Prevents Systemic Disease Spread in Ant Colonies.” ELife. eLife Sciences Publications, 2018. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.32073. ieee: C. Pull et al., “Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies,” eLife, vol. 7. eLife Sciences Publications, 2018. ista: Pull C, Ugelvig LV, Wiesenhofer F, Grasse AV, Tragust S, Schmitt T, Brown M, Cremer S. 2018. Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies. eLife. 7, e32073. mla: Pull, Christopher, et al. “Destructive Disinfection of Infected Brood Prevents Systemic Disease Spread in Ant Colonies.” ELife, vol. 7, e32073, eLife Sciences Publications, 2018, doi:10.7554/eLife.32073. short: C. Pull, L.V. Ugelvig, F. Wiesenhofer, A.V. Grasse, S. Tragust, T. Schmitt, M. Brown, S. Cremer, ELife 7 (2018). date_created: 2018-12-11T11:47:31Z date_published: 2018-01-09T00:00:00Z date_updated: 2023-09-11T12:54:26Z day: '09' ddc: - '570' - '590' department: - _id: SyCr doi: 10.7554/eLife.32073 ec_funded: 1 external_id: isi: - '000419601300001' file: - access_level: open_access checksum: 540f941e8d3530a9441e4affd94f07d7 content_type: application/pdf creator: system date_created: 2018-12-12T10:10:43Z date_updated: 2020-07-14T12:47:20Z file_id: '4832' file_name: IST-2018-978-v1+1_elife-32073-v1.pdf file_size: 1435585 relation: main_file file_date_updated: 2020-07-14T12:47:20Z has_accepted_license: '1' intvolume: ' 7' isi: 1 language: - iso: eng month: '01' oa: 1 oa_version: Published Version project: - _id: 25DC711C-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425 call_identifier: FP7 grant_number: '243071' name: 'Social Vaccination in Ant Colonies: from Individual Mechanisms to Society Effects' - _id: 25DDF0F0-B435-11E9-9278-68D0E5697425 call_identifier: FP7 grant_number: '302004' name: 'Pathogen Detectors Collective disease defence and pathogen detection abilities in ant societies: a chemo-neuro-immunological approach' publication: eLife publication_status: published publisher: eLife Sciences Publications publist_id: '7188' pubrep_id: '978' quality_controlled: '1' related_material: record: - id: '819' relation: dissertation_contains status: public scopus_import: '1' status: public title: Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic disease spread in ant colonies tmp: image: /images/cc_by.png legal_code_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode name: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0) short: CC BY (4.0) type: journal_article user_id: c635000d-4b10-11ee-a964-aac5a93f6ac1 volume: 7 year: '2018' ...