Fig. 6

Intra-colony toxin diversity in R. metallica is at least partly due to toxin allelic variation. A Gel view of MALDI MS spectra collected in positive reflectron mode in three technical replicates from venoms of eight individual workers across four different colonies of R. metallica, showing both high intra- and inter-colony variation in venom composition. B Principal component analysis (PCA) and C clustering analysis of MALDI MS spectra of individual workers from different colonies revealed neither colony-specific clusters nor across-colony clusters suggestive of chemically distinct worker castes. Datapoints in the PCA plots and numbered specimens in the clustering analysis are colored according to the colony label in A. D PCR products from genomic DNA using toxin-specific primers show that the intra-colony genetic variation is at least in part due to toxin allelic variants. Genomic was extracted from individual ants belonging to the same colony as those used for our transcriptome and main proteomic data. DNA standards and their corresponding length (bp) are shown in the left- and right-most lanes, individual ants are labeled 1–10, while C represents negative control. Full gel images are shown in Additional file 4: Fig. S4