Hart, Anne, Govindarajan, Lakshmi, Schuch, Kelsey, Guo, Yuliang, Kim, Sarah, Serre, Thomas, Baskoylu, Saba
[
International Worm Meeting,
2021]
Fatigue is poorly understood, beyond muscle energetics. For C. elegans, swimming is a more energetically costly behavior than crawling and can be classified as a form of exercise (PMID 28395669). After prolonged swimming, C. elegans cycle between active and inactive bouts (PMID 19011210); inactive bouts may be sleep or quiescent rest. Sleep is the most well characterized period where C. elegans show locomotion quiescence; however, we have shown that the quiescent bouts observed after prolonged swimming exercise do not fully fit the behavioral criteria required to be classified as sleep (PMID 32811254). It is likely that this locomotion quiescence is a fatigue-induced state of quiescent rest. Using a computer vision program and other approaches we also tested the role of several genes previously implicated in other behavioral quiescence to determine whether they also affect quiescent bouts induced by prolonged swimming. We have found that while there is some overlap between genes involved in regulating behavioral quiescence during C. elegans sleep and exercise-induced quiescence, distinct pathways underlie these behaviors. Ultimately, we hope to better understand the pathways involved in regulating fatigue and quiescent bout cycling.