OLA-1, an Obg-like ATPase, integrates hunger with temperature information in sensory neurons in C. elegans

Abstract

Animals detect changes in both their environment and their internal state and modify their behavior accordingly. Yet, it remains largely to be clarified how information of environment and internal state is integrated and how such integrated information modifies behavior. Well-fed C. elegans migrates to past cultivation temperature on a thermal gradient, which is disrupted when animals are starved. We recently reported that the neuronal activities synchronize between a thermosensory neuron AFD and an interneuron AIY, which is directly downstream of AFD, in well-fed animals, while this synchrony is disrupted in starved animals. However, it remained to be determined whether the disruption of the synchrony is derived from modulation of the transmitter release from AFD or from the modification of reception or signal transduction in AIY. By performing forward genetics on a transition of thermotaxis behavior along starvation, we revealed that OLA-1, an Obg-like ATPase, functions in AFD to promote disruption of AFD-AIY synchrony and behavioral transition. Our results suggest that the information of hunger is delivered to the AFD thermosensory neuron and gates transmitter release from AFD to disrupt thermotaxis, thereby shedding light onto a mechanism for the integration of environmental and internal state to modulate behavior.

Hierarchical regulation of functionally antagonistic neuropeptides expressed in a single neuron pair

“…We thus recorded Ca 2+ transients in AIY before and during AVK-photoactivation (Figure 5E). Though AIY was highly active before the stimulus, possibly as the immobilization startles sensory neurons innervating AIY [71][72][73][74][75][76][77] , AVK photoactivation still significantly activated AIY in animals cultivated with ATR, but not without ATR. To further assess the interaction between NPR-35 and NLP-10 and determine the G protein coupling specificity of NPR-35, we expressed NPR-35 in Xenopus laevis oocytes and activated it by administering NLP-10.…”