Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Environmental osmolarity presents a common type of sensory stimulus to animals. While behavioral responses to osmotic changes are important for maintaining a stable intracellular osmolarity, the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. In the natural habitat ofCaenorhabditis elegans, changes in environmental osmolarity are commonplace. It is known that the nematode acutely avoids shocks of extremely high osmolarity. Here, we show thatC. elegansalso generates gradually increased aversion of mild upshifts in environmental osmolarity. Different from an acute avoidance of osmotic shocks that depends on the function of a transient receptor potential vanilloid channel, the slow aversion to osmotic upshifts requires the cGMP-gated sensory channel subunit TAX-2. TAX-2 acts in several sensory neurons that are exposed to body fluid to generate the aversive response through a motor network that underlies navigation. Osmotic upshifts activate the body cavity sensory neuron URX, which is known to induce aversion upon activation. Together, our results characterize the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying a novel sensorimotor response to osmotic stimuli and reveal thatC. elegansengages different behaviors and the underlying mechanisms to regulate responses to extracellular osmolarity.
Source: eNeuro
Authors: Jingyi Yu, Wenxing Yang, He Liu, Yingsong Hao, Yun Zhang
Institutions: Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital
Language: English
Topic: Ion Channels and Receptors
Subfield: Sensory Systems
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,925
Funder: National Institutes of Health
OpenAlex ID: W2605345636