Differential processing of a chemosensory cue across life stages sharing the same valence state in Caenorhabditis elegans
Abstract
Many chemosensory cues evoke responses of the same valence under widely varying physiological conditions. It remains unclear whether similar or distinct neural mechanisms are involved in the detection and processing of such chemosensory cues across contexts. We show that in Caenorhabditis elegans, a chemosensory cue is processed by distinct neural mechanisms at two different life stages that share the same valence state. Both starved adults and dauer larvae are attracted to carbon dioxide (CO₂), but CO₂ evokes different patterns of neural activity and different motor outputs at the two life stages. Moreover, the same interneuron within the CO₂ microcircuit plays a different role in driving CO₂-evoked motor output at the two life stages. The dauer-specific patterns of CO₂-evoked activity in this interneuron require a dauer-specific gap junction complex and insulin signaling. Our results demonstrate that functionally distinct microcircuits are engaged in response to a chemosensory cue that triggers the same valence state at different life stages, revealing an unexpected complexity to chemosensory processing.
Additional Information
© 2023 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). We thank Cynthia Chai for the AIB::NaChBac strain. We thank Astra Bryant, Michelle Castelletto, and Ricardo Frausto for insightful comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by NIH F32 AI147617 (N.B.), NIH MARC T34 GM008563 (E.J.R.P.), NIH UF1 NS111697 (P.W.S.), and NIH R01 DC017959 and an HHMI Faculty Scholar Award (E.A.H.). Author contributions: N.B., P.-Y.S., P.W.S., and E.A.H. designed research; N.B., P.-Y.S., and E.J.R.P. performed research; N.B. and E.A.H. analyzed data; and N.B., P.-Y.S., P.W.S., and E.A.H. wrote the paper. The authors declare no competing interest.Attached Files
Published - pnas.2218023120.pdf
Supplemental Material - pnas.2218023120.sapp.pdf
Supplemental Material - pnas.2218023120.sd01.xlsx
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC10175840
- Eprint ID
- 121453
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20230519-1616000.12
- NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship
- F32 AI147617
- NIH Predoctoral Fellowship
- T34 GM008563
- NIH
- UF1 NS111697
- NIH
- R01 DC017959
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
- Created
-
2023-06-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2023-06-28Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Biology and Biological Engineering (BBE)