A conserved neuropeptide system links head and body motor circuits to enable adaptive behavior

eLife

Michele L Lemons¹  Liliane Schoofs²  Isabel Beets²  Raja Bhattacharya³  Denis Touroutine³  Mark J Alkema³  Jeremy Florman³  Shankar Ramachandran³  Christopher M Lambert³  Kellianne Alexander³  Navonil Banerjee³  Michael M Francis³ 

[1] Department of Biological and Physical Sciences, Assumption University, Worcester, United States;Department of Biology, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leuven, Belgium;Department of Neurobiology, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, United States;

关键词: neuropeptide;    cholecystokinin;    neural circuits;    C. elegans;    G protein-coupled receptor;    local search;    C. elegans;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.71747

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

Neuromodulators promote adaptive behaviors that are often complex and involve concerted activity changes across circuits that are often not physically connected. It is not well understood how neuromodulatory systems accomplish these tasks. Here, we show that the Caenorhabditis elegans NLP-12 neuropeptide system shapes responses to food availability by modulating the activity of head and body wall motor neurons through alternate G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) targets, CKR-1 and CKR-2. We show ckr-2 deletion reduces body bend depth during movement under basal conditions. We demonstrate CKR-1 is a functional NLP-12 receptor and define its expression in the nervous system. In contrast to basal locomotion, biased CKR-1 GPCR stimulation of head motor neurons promotes turning during local searching. Deletion of ckr-1 reduces head neuron activity and diminishes turning while specific ckr-1 overexpression or head neuron activation promote turning. Thus, our studies suggest locomotor responses to changing food availability are regulated through conditional NLP-12 stimulation of head or body wall motor circuits.

【 授权许可】

CC BY