The role of carbon dioxide in nematode behaviour and physiology

Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important sensory cue for many animals, including both parasitic and free-living nematodes. Many nematodes show context-dependent, experience-dependent and/or life-stage-dependent behavioural responses to CO2, suggesting that CO2 plays crucial roles throughout the nematode life cycle in multiple ethological contexts. Nematodes also show a wide range of physiological responses to CO2. Here, we review the diverse responses of parasitic and free-living nematodes to CO2. We also discuss the molecular, cellular and neural circuit mechanisms that mediate CO2 detection in nematodes, and that drive context-dependent and experience-dependent responses of nematodes to CO2.

Distinct neural circuits establish the same chemosensory behavior in C. elegans

“…C. elegans has a small nervous system with a well-characterized connectome (White et al 1986, Varshney et al 2011, Cook et al 2019). In addition, C. elegans responds robustly to a diverse array of sensory cues, including CO 2 (Banerjee and Hallem 2020). CO 2 is an ambiguous chemosensory cue for C. elegans, as elevated CO 2 levels in its natural habitat may signal food, predators, pathogens, or conspecifics Hallem 2015, Banerjee andHallem 2020).…”

Strongyloides RNA-seq Browser: a web-based software platform for on-demand bioinformatics analyses of Strongyloides species

“…2020). In parasitic nematodes, chemosensation plays an important role in driving life-stage-specific, ethologically relevant behaviors such as host seeking and host invasion (Bryant and Hallem 2018; Banerjee and Hallem 2020; Wheeler et al . 2020).…”

Strongyloides RNA-seq Browser: a web-based software platform for on-demand bioinformatics analyses of Strongyloides species

“…As an example of application usage, we applied the Strongyloides RNA-seq Browser to a published dataset of S. stercoralis chemoreceptor genes ( Wheeler et al 2020 ). In parasitic nematodes, chemosensation plays an important role in driving life-stage-specific, ethologically relevant behaviors such as host seeking and host invasion ( Bryant and Hallem 2018 ; Banerjee and Hallem 2020 ; Wheeler et al 2020 ). For example, S. stercoralis iL3s respond robustly to a number of human-associated odorants and have distinct olfactory preferences from those of other life stages ( Castelletto et al 2014 ; Gang et al 2020 ).…”