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Byrne Rodgers J, Ryu WS. Targeted thermal stimulation and high-content phenotyping reveal that the C. elegans escape response integrates current behavioral state and past experience. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0229399. [PMID: 32218560 PMCID: PMC7100941 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0229399] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2019] [Accepted: 02/05/2020] [Indexed: 12/03/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to avoid harmful or potentially harmful stimuli can help an organism escape predators and injury, and certain avoidance mechanisms are conserved across the animal kingdom. However, how the need to avoid an imminent threat is balanced with current behavior and modified by past experience is not well understood. In this work we focused on rapidly increasing temperature, a signal that triggers an escape response in a variety of animals, including the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We have developed a noxious thermal response assay using an infrared laser that can be automatically controlled and targeted in order to investigate how C. elegans responds to noxious heat over long timescales and to repeated stimuli in various behavioral and sensory contexts. High-content phenotyping of behavior in individual animals revealed that the C. elegans escape response is multidimensional, with some features that extend for several minutes, and can be modulated by (i) stimulus amplitude; (ii) other sensory inputs, such as food context; (iii) long and short-term thermal experience; and (iv) the animal's current behavioral state.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jarlath Byrne Rodgers
- Department of Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| | - William S. Ryu
- Department of Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Donnelly Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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2
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Perez-Gomez A, Carretero M, Weber N, Peterka V, To A, Titova V, Solis G, Osborn O, Petrascheck M. A phenotypic Caenorhabditis elegans screen identifies a selective suppressor of antipsychotic-induced hyperphagia. Nat Commun 2018; 9:5272. [PMID: 30532051 PMCID: PMC6288085 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07684-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2018] [Accepted: 11/12/2018] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Antipsychotic (AP) drugs are used to treat psychiatric disorders but are associated with significant weight gain and metabolic disease. Increased food intake (hyperphagia) appears to be a driving force by which APs induce weight gain but the mechanisms are poorly understood. Here we report that administration of APs to C. elegans induces hyperphagia by a mechanism that is genetically distinct from basal food intake. We exploit this finding to screen for adjuvant drugs that suppress AP-induced hyperphagia in C. elegans and mice. In mice AP-induced hyperphagia is associated with a unique hypothalamic gene expression signature that is abrogated by adjuvant drug treatment. Genetic analysis of this signature using C. elegans identifies two transcription factors, nhr-25/Nr5a2 and nfyb-1/NFYB to be required for AP-induced hyperphagia. Our study reveals that AP-induced hyperphagia can be selectively suppressed without affecting basal food intake allowing for novel drug discovery strategies to combat AP-induced metabolic side effects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anabel Perez-Gomez
- Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Maria Carretero
- Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Natalie Weber
- Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Veronika Peterka
- Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Alan To
- Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Viktoriya Titova
- Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Gregory Solis
- Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Olivia Osborn
- Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
| | - Michael Petrascheck
- Department of Molecular Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
- Department of Neuroscience, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
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Rodríguez-Palero MJ, López-Díaz A, Marsac R, Gomes JE, Olmedo M, Artal-Sanz M. An automated method for the analysis of food intake behaviour in Caenorhabditis elegans. Sci Rep 2018; 8:3633. [PMID: 29483540 PMCID: PMC5832146 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-21964-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2017] [Accepted: 02/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The study of mechanisms that govern feeding behaviour and its related disorders is a matter of global health interest. The roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans is becoming a model organism of choice to study these conserved pathways. C. elegans feeding depends on the contraction of the pharynx (pumping). Thanks to the worm transparency, pumping can be directly observed under a stereoscope. Therefore, C. elegans feeding has been historically investigated by counting pharyngeal pumping or by other indirect approaches. However, those methods are short-term, time-consuming and unsuitable for independent measurements of sizable numbers of individuals. Although some particular devices and long-term methods have been lately reported, they fail in the automated, scalable and/or continuous aspects. Here we present an automated bioluminescence-based method for the analysis and continuous monitoring of worm feeding in a multi-well format. We validate the method using genetic, environmental and pharmacological modulators of pharyngeal pumping. This flexible methodology allows studying food intake at specific time-points or during longer periods of time, in single worms or in populations at any developmental stage. Additionally, changes in feeding rates in response to differential metabolic status or external environmental cues can be monitored in real time, allowing accurate kinetic measurements.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mª Jesús Rodríguez-Palero
- Andalusian Center for Developmental Biology, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas/Junta de Andalucía/Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Departament of Molecular Biology and Biochemical Engineering, Carretera de Utrera, km 1, 41013, Seville, Spain
| | - Ana López-Díaz
- Andalusian Center for Developmental Biology, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas/Junta de Andalucía/Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Departament of Molecular Biology and Biochemical Engineering, Carretera de Utrera, km 1, 41013, Seville, Spain
| | - Roxane Marsac
- Institut de Biochimie et Génétique Cellulaires - C.N.R.S. UMR 5095 and Université de Bordeaux, 1, rue Camille Saint-Saëns, 33077, Bordeaux Cedex, France
| | - José-Eduardo Gomes
- Institut de Biochimie et Génétique Cellulaires - C.N.R.S. UMR 5095 and Université de Bordeaux, 1, rue Camille Saint-Saëns, 33077, Bordeaux Cedex, France
| | - María Olmedo
- Andalusian Center for Developmental Biology, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas/Junta de Andalucía/Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Departament of Molecular Biology and Biochemical Engineering, Carretera de Utrera, km 1, 41013, Seville, Spain.
- Department of Genetics, University of Seville, Avenida Reina Mercedes s/n, 41012, Seville, Spain.
| | - Marta Artal-Sanz
- Andalusian Center for Developmental Biology, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas/Junta de Andalucía/Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Departament of Molecular Biology and Biochemical Engineering, Carretera de Utrera, km 1, 41013, Seville, Spain.
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Gallagher T, You YJ. Falling asleep after a big meal: Neuronal regulation of satiety. WORM 2014; 3:e27938. [PMID: 25057453 PMCID: PMC4091210 DOI: 10.4161/worm.27938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/05/2013] [Revised: 01/06/2014] [Accepted: 01/21/2014] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
C. elegans has become an ideal model to study genetics of appetite control and energy metabolism because of its robust conservation in molecular mechanisms underlying appetite control and in regulation of the relevant feeding behavior. Satiety behavior in worms in particular shows striking similarities to that in mammals, as a worm becomes quiescent after a big meal, mimicking post-prandial sleep in mammals. Here we review our recent finding regarding the neuronal regulation of the behavior and the implication of the finding such as cyclicity of behavioral states. Based on the finding, we propose a rather speculative but intriguing view of how metabolism could link to post-prandial sleep.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Gallagher
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Virginia Commonwealth University; Richmond, VA USA
| | - Young-Jai You
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Virginia Commonwealth University; Richmond, VA USA
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Abstract
We develop a new hidden Markov model-based method to analyze C elegans locomotive behavior and use this method to quantitatively characterize behavioral states. In agreement with previous work, we find states corresponding to roaming, dwelling, and quiescence. However, we also find evidence for a continuum of intermediate states. We suggest that roaming, dwelling, and quiescence may best be thought of as extremes which, mixed in any proportion, define the locomotive repertoire of C elegans foraging and feeding behavior.
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