Molecular mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity in social insects

•The IIS is the core pathway underlying caste determination.•The pathway can be regulated by genes, nutrition, and other pathways.•Epigenetics mechanisms have been proposed to play a role in caste differentiation.•Tissue specificity of IIS and hormonal signaling shapes polyphenic alternatives.

Polyphenism in insects, whereby a single genome expresses different phenotypes in response to environmental cues, is a fascinating biological phenomenon. Social insects are especially intriguing examples of phenotypic plasticity because division of labor results in the development of extreme morphological phenotypes, such as the queen and worker castes. Although sociality evolved independently in ants, bees, wasps and termites, similar genetic pathways regulate phenotypic plasticity in these different groups of social insects. The insulin/insulin-like growth signaling (IIS) plays a key role in this process. Recent research reveals that IIS interacts with other pathways including target of rapamycin (TOR), epidermal growth factor receptor (Egfr), juvenile hormone (JH) and vitellogenin (Vg) to regulate caste differentiation.