An oxytocin-dependent social interaction between larvae and adult C. elegans

Scott, Euan; Hudson, Adam M.; Feist, Emily; Calahorro, Fernando; Dillon, James; Freitas, Raissa de; Wand, Matthew E.; Schoofs, Liliane; O’Connor, Vincent; Holden‐Dye, Lindy

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-09350-7

Cited by 41 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(93 reference statements)

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“…B) Ants were collected from foraging area (foragers) and brood chamber (nurses) from the same nest (n = 20, Student's t test). C ) Relative expression ratio of a precursor before (d 0), during (d 2), and after (d 3 and 9) the starvation period of 48 h (n = [17][18][19][20]. See detailed statistical analyses in Supplemental Table 5.…”

Section: Analysis Of Behavioral Changes In Ip-kd Ants Of L Neglectusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oxytocin‐like signaling in ants influences metabolic gene expression and locomotor activity

et al. 2018

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Ants are emerging model systems to study cellular signaling because distinct castes possess different physiologic phenotypes within the same colony. Here we studied the functionality of inotocin signaling, an insect ortholog of mammalian oxytocin (OT), which was recently discovered in ants. In Lasius ants, we determined that specialization within the colony, seasonal factors, and physiologic conditions down-regulated the expression of the OT-like signaling system. Given this natural variation, we interrogated its function using RNAi knockdowns. Next-generation RNA sequencing of OT-like precursor knock-down ants highlighted its role in the regulation of genes involved in metabolism. Knock-down ants exhibited higher walking activity and increased self-grooming in the brood chamber. We propose that OT-like signaling in ants is important for regulating metabolic processes and locomotion.-Liutkevičiūtė, Z., Gil-Mansilla, E., Eder, T., Casillas-Pérez, B., Di Giglio, M. G., Muratspahić, E., Grebien, F., Rattei, T., Muttenthaler, M., Cremer, S., Gruber, C. W. Oxytocin-like signaling in ants influences metabolic gene expression and locomotor activity.

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Section: Analysis Of Behavioral Changes In Ip-kd Ants Of L Neglectusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In these worms, OT/VP-like (nematocin) signaling controls mate searching and mating behaviors in males as well as gustatory learning processes that regulate food preference (15, 16). In addition, nematocin appears to regulate parental–offspring social behavior (17). …”

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confidence: 99%

Oxytocin‐like signaling in ants influences metabolic gene expression and locomotor activity

et al. 2018

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“…On the one hand, if the signal is completely abolished then measurement is impossible. On the other hand, knowing that a given treatment affects bacterial physiology may be useful information in interpreting any observed feeding differences, since drug effects on bacteria are known to also affect host physiology (Cabreiro et al 2013; Scott et al 2017; García-González et al 2017). Another limitation of our method is its sensitivity: we were unable to detect single worm feeding, although this is likely to be possible using a higher magnification imaging system.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Feeding behaviour plays an important role in fields ranging from ecology and evolution (Larsen 2003; MacArthur and Pianka 1966) to ageing and metabolism (Balasubramanian, Howell, and Anderson 2017; Trepanowski et al 2011) and health and disease (Djalalinia et al 2015; Mattson et al 2014). The roundworm C. elegans has emerged as a useful model organism to study all aspects of feeding, including worms’ immediate response to finding food (Sawin, Ranganathan, and Horvitz 2000), foraging and patch leaving (Shtonda 2006; Harvey 2009; Bendesky et al 2011; Milward et al 2011; E. Scott et al 2017), as well as the details of food intake (L. Avery 1993; Leon Avery and Shtonda 2003; Fang-Yen, Avery, and Samuel 2009) and even spitting (Bhatla et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

MeasuringC. elegansspatial foraging and food intake using bioluminescent bacteria

Ss¹,

Sarkisyan²,

Brown³

2019

Preprint

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For most animals, feeding includes two behaviours: foraging to find a food patch and food intake once a patch is found. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a useful model for studying the genetics of both behaviours. However, most methods of measuring feeding in worms quantify either foraging behaviour or food intake but not both. Imaging the depletion of fluorescently labelled bacteria provides information on both the distribution and amount of consumption, but even after patch exhaustion a prominent background signal remains, which complicates quantification. Here, we used a bioluminescent Escherichia coli strain to quantify C. elegans feeding. With light emission tightly coupled to active metabolism, only living bacteria are capable of bioluminescence so the signal is lost upon ingestion. We quantified the loss of bioluminescence using N2 reference worms and eat-2 mutants, and found a nearly 100-fold increase in signal-to-background ratio and lower background compared to loss of fluorescence. We also quantified feeding using aggregating npr-1 mutant worms. We found that groups of npr-1 mutants first clear bacteria from each other before foraging collectively for more food; similarly, during high density swarming, only worms at the migrating front are in contact with bacteria. These results demonstrate the usefulness of bioluminescent bacteria for quantifying feeding and suggest a hygiene hypothesis for the function of C. elegans aggregation and swarming.

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“…Several recent studies have shown that L1 arrest density can alter various phenotypes in C. elegans. For example, L1 density plays a role in parent-offspring signaling, as the presence of L1 larvae on plates was recently shown to alter food-related behaviors in adults (SCOTT et al 2017). In this case, the relevant signal is lost in daf-22 mutant, indicating that ascarosides are likely responsible for L1 density signaling.…”

Section: L1 Density Signaling In C Elegansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of larval density on gene regulation inC. elegansduring routine L1 synchronization

Rando

2018

Preprint

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Bleaching gravid C. elegans followed by a short period of starvation of the L1 larvae is a routine method performed by worm researchers for generating synchronous populations for experiments. During the process of investigating dietary effects on gene regulation in L1 stage worms by single-worm RNA-Seq, we found that the density of resuspended L1 larvae affects expression of many mRNAs. Specifically, a number of genes related to metabolism and signalling are highly expressed in worms arrested at low density, but are repressed at higher arrest densities. We generated a GFP reporter strain based on one of the most density-dependent genes in our datasetlips-15and confirmed that this reporter was expressed specifically in worms arrested at relatively low density. Finally, we show that conditioned media from high density L1 cultures was able to downregulate lips-15 even in L1 animals arrested at low density, and experiments using daf-22 mutant animals demonstrated that this effect is not mediated by the ascaroside family of signalling pheromones. Together, our data implicate a soluble signalling molecule in density sensing by L1 stage C. elegans, and provide guidance for design of experiments focused on early developmental gene regulation. Programs (P40 OD010440). This work was supported by NIH R01 HD080224. CCC is a Merck Fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. METHODSC. elegans strains and maintenance. All strains were maintained at 20 °C and passaged for at least four generations under non-starvation conditions before

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An oxytocin-dependent social interaction between larvae and adult C. elegans

Cited by 41 publications

References 53 publications

Oxytocin‐like signaling in ants influences metabolic gene expression and locomotor activity

Oxytocin‐like signaling in ants influences metabolic gene expression and locomotor activity

MeasuringC. elegansspatial foraging and food intake using bioluminescent bacteria

Effects of larval density on gene regulation inC. elegansduring routine L1 synchronization

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