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Resources » Paper

Andres Bendesky et al. (2008) C.elegans Neuronal Development Meeting "Evolutionary and Molecular Basis of C. elegans Hermaphrodite Leaving Behavior"

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    Status:
    Publication type:
    Meeting_abstract
    WormBase ID:
    WBPaper00032721

    Andres Bendesky, Matt Rockman, & Cori Bargmann (2008). Evolutionary and Molecular Basis of C. elegans Hermaphrodite Leaving Behavior presented in C.elegans Neuronal Development Meeting. Unpublished information; cite only with author permission.

    Animals feeding on a patchy environment must choose when to leave the patch they are currently foraging in to move on to the next (Charnov, 1976). Male patch leaving behavior is also involved in mate searching and has been studied in more detail than hermaphrodite leaving (Lipton et al, 2004). In order to gain some understanding of the evolutionary basis of hermaphrodite leaving behavior, we analyzed different wild strains of C. elegans. We found that CB4856 leaves a lawn of bacteria much more frequently than the Bristol N2 strain does. We performed QTL analysis using recombinant inbred lines of an advanced intercross of these two strains and found two significant QTLs, one in chromosome X, centered around npr-1, and one on the right arm of chromosome IV. We are currently following up on those results. To understand leaving behavior further, we have analyzed mutants for chemosensation (che-2, tax-4, osm-9;ocr-2), modulatory amines (cat-2, tph-1, tbh-1, tdc-1), or neurotransmitter release (eat-4). tdc-1, which disrupts tyramine and octopamine production, showed a modest increase in leaving, while eat-4, which impairs glutamate release, had a very strong tendency to leave the lawn. This phenotype could be rescued completely by restoring eat-4 to AWC olfactory neurons while, interestingly, restoring eat-4 to ASK in addition to AWC had a much weaker rescue. These results suggest that AWC and ASK have antagonistic roles on leaving behavior: AWC prevents leaving and ASK promotes leaving.


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