Cockroach Lab Provides Insight into How Organisms Allocate Resources

The dark brown cockroach crawling up professor Agus Muñoz-Garcia’s right arm gives him no reason for worry. He grins as the creature makes its way toward his elbow, knowing the encounter is harmless.

Equally harmless are the 1,000-plus cockroaches that he keeps in methacrylate containers in his laboratory. They crawl through empty toilet paper rolls, making their way toward a cup of dog food that supplies their nutrition.

As far as cockroaches go, they seem content – maybe even happy – and most of all harmless.

These oval-shaped bugs are part of a research project that Muñoz-Garcia and his students are conducting to better understand how animals allocate resources for basic life functions like reproduction, growth and maintenance, as well as how they respond to different environmental conditions.

“They are basically like mammals,” he said. “The females mate and then they produce embryos contained inside a brood sac. The brood sac secretes a product that is very similar to the milk of mammals. The embryos consume the milk and about two months later, the females give birth to 10-12 nymphs, or baby cockroaches.” 

Muñoz-Garcia has been a professor with Ohio State for 12 years, and is currently an associate professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State Mansfield. He is interested in how organisms function as a response to environmental changes – things like temperature, humidity, resource availability and more. 

Going with Cockroaches

He first wanted to study mice, but the high cost and the challenge of keeping them in captivity caused him to reconsider. Then one day, at a research conference in Oxford, Ohio, where he met a professor and past graduate student classmate who was studying cockroaches.

That professor, Josh Benoit, of the University of Cincinnati, set him up with 100 cockroaches. Today, Muñoz-Garcia has between 1,000-2,000 roaches, and is in the midst of new research to document how insects and other living organisms allocate resources.

In the fall of 2024, Muñoz-Garcia moved his lab from Ohio State Columbus, to Ohio State Mansfield. Today, his research involves undergraduate students, as well as co-researchers Josh Benoit, and Paul Ayayee, a biology professor with the University of Nebraska.

Resource Allocation

The team is working together to document how the roaches allocate resources, and the factors that control or determine this allocation.

So far, his research points toward a group of proteins, called sirtuins, as being the deciding factor into how resources are allocated.

“Resource allocation is not something that magically occurs or that we necessarily have conscious control over,” he said. “We identified this group of proteins, called sirtuins. It seems that these proteins control metabolic processes in the cells. They can activate or deactivate cells.”

Destiny Moton is a third-year biology major who works in Muñoz-Garcia’s lab. She said the hands-on research she is gaining is a perfect fit for her coursework.

“The work we do in the lab really relates to my biology major very well,” she said. We’re using a lot of chemistry and we’re tracking things that happen not only in insects, but also humans.”

Moton is working with Muñoz-Garcia to “tag” the nutrients, by labeling the food molecules the cockroaches consume, and tracking where they go within the body.

She is becoming familiar with a wide range of lab equipment, used to track energy expenditure by measuring oxygen consumption, water loss and much more.

She admits that working with cockroaches was a little intimidating at first.

“Initially, I was a little afraid because I do not like insects,” she said. “But Dr. Muñoz-Garcia explained to me the different kinds and behaviors, and now I am comfortable working with them.”

Cancer Research

A potential breakthrough is the ability to control cancerous tumor growths. Because cancer robs the body of essential resources, there is hope that cancer cells can be controlled by controlling resource allocation.

“An obvious clinical application is for cancer research,” said Muñoz-Garcia. “If you can tell the body not to bring resources to the cancer cells, then you can reduce the growth of the tumor or potentially kill it.”

While cancer research is certainly possible, his near-term focus is on how the cockroaches respond to different diets, and how they function based on simple manipulations. Currently, he is studying how nutritional differences affect the cockroaches into adulthood, and how current diet potentially affects the physiology of future generations – a process known as epigenetics.

Muñoz-Garcia plans to publish his findings in various biology journals including “Proceedings of the Royal Society of London” and “Journal of Experimental Biology.” In the fall of 2024, he spoke about his research during Ohio State Mansfield’s Faculty Research Frenzy.

To learn more about his work, contact him at munoz-garcia.1@osu.edu or 614-292-1149