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Watzinger G, Bennett HL. Ceramide Synthase HYL-2 is Required for Neural Preconditioning to Anoxia in Caenorhabditis elegans . MICROPUBLICATION BIOLOGY 2024; 2024:10.17912/micropub.biology.001024. [PMID: 38872843 PMCID: PMC11170290 DOI: 10.17912/micropub.biology.001024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2023] [Revised: 02/13/2024] [Accepted: 05/28/2024] [Indexed: 06/15/2024]
Abstract
Oxygen is vital for neuron development and function, and low oxygen (hypoxia) or 0% oxygen available (anoxia) conditions lead to neuronal dysfunction and death. Nonlethal forms of stress, prior to hypoxic or anoxic (preconditioning) environments protects neurons and increases survival to oxygen deprivation. Hyperpolarization of C. elegans neurons prior to anoxia (neural preconditioning) increases survival, but the cellular and molecular pathways that confer survival are unclear. Here we report that loss in ceramide synthase gene, hyl-2 suppresses increased survival to anoxia in neural preconditioned animals, suggesting that HYL-2 functions upstream of the circuit that regulates neural preconditioning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ginger Watzinger
- Department of Biology, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, United States
| | - Heather L Bennett
- Department of Biology, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, United States
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Shi Y, Qin L, Wu M, Zheng J, Xie T, Shao Z. Gut neuroendocrine signaling regulates synaptic assembly in C. elegans. EMBO Rep 2022; 23:e53267. [PMID: 35748387 DOI: 10.15252/embr.202153267] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2021] [Revised: 05/26/2022] [Accepted: 06/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Synaptic connections are essential to build a functional brain. How synapses are formed during development is a fundamental question in neuroscience. Recent studies provided evidence that the gut plays an important role in neuronal development through processing signals derived from gut microbes or nutrients. Defects in gut-brain communication can lead to various neurological disorders. Although the roles of the gut in communicating signals from its internal environment to the brain are well known, it remains unclear whether the gut plays a genetically encoded role in neuronal development. Using C. elegans as a model, we uncover that a Wnt-endocrine signaling pathway in the gut regulates synaptic development in the brain. A canonical Wnt signaling pathway promotes synapse formation through regulating the expression of the neuropeptides encoding gene nlp-40 in the gut, which functions through the neuronally expressed GPCR/AEX-2 receptor during development. Wnt-NLP-40-AEX-2 signaling likely acts to modulate neuronal activity. Our study reveals a genetic role of the gut in synaptic development and identifies a novel contribution of the gut-brain axis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanjun Shi
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Lu Qin
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Mengting Wu
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Junyu Zheng
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Tao Xie
- Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
| | - Zhiyong Shao
- State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science, Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
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Yan J, Sun CL, Shin S, Van Gilst M, Crowder CM. Effect of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response on hypoxic death and mitochondrial protein aggregation. Cell Death Dis 2021; 12:711. [PMID: 34267182 PMCID: PMC8282665 DOI: 10.1038/s41419-021-03979-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2021] [Revised: 06/22/2021] [Accepted: 06/23/2021] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
Mitochondria are the main oxygen consumers in cells and as such are the primary organelle affected by hypoxia. All hypoxia pathology presumably derives from the initial mitochondrial dysfunction. An early event in hypoxic pathology in C. elegans is disruption of mitochondrial proteostasis with induction of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) and mitochondrial protein aggregation. Here in C. elegans, we screen through RNAis and mutants that confer either strong resistance to hypoxic cell death or strong induction of the UPRmt to determine the relationship between hypoxic cell death, UPRmt activation, and hypoxia-induced mitochondrial protein aggregation (HIMPA). We find that resistance to hypoxic cell death invariantly mitigated HIMPA. We also find that UPRmt activation invariantly mitigated HIMPA. However, UPRmt activation was neither necessary nor sufficient for resistance to hypoxic death and vice versa. We conclude that UPRmt is not necessarily hypoxia protective against cell death but does protect from mitochondrial protein aggregation, one of the early hypoxic pathologies in C. elegans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junyi Yan
- Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.,Mitochondrial and Metabolism Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.,Department of Anesthesiology, Central Hospital of Changdian, 118214, Dandong, Liaoning, China
| | - Chun-Ling Sun
- Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.,Mitochondrial and Metabolism Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA
| | - Seokyung Shin
- Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.,Mitochondrial and Metabolism Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.,Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Anesthesia and Pain Research Institute Yonsei University College of Medicine, 50-1 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, Korea
| | - Marc Van Gilst
- Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.,Mitochondrial and Metabolism Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA
| | - C Michael Crowder
- Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA. .,Mitochondrial and Metabolism Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA. .,Department of Genome Science, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, 98109, USA.
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Bennett HL, McClanahan PD, Fang-Yen C, Kalb RG. Preconditioning of Caenorhabditis elegans to anoxic insult by inactivation of cholinergic, GABAergic and muscle activity. GENES, BRAIN, AND BEHAVIOR 2021; 20:e12713. [PMID: 33155386 DOI: 10.1111/gbb.12713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2020] [Revised: 10/19/2020] [Accepted: 11/04/2020] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
For most metazoans, oxygen deprivation leads to cell dysfunction and if severe, death. Sublethal stress prior to a hypoxic or anoxic insult ("preconditioning") can protect cells from subsequent oxygen deprivation. The molecular mechanisms by which sublethal stress can buffer against a subsequent toxic insult and the role of the nervous system in the response are not well understood. We studied the role of neuronal activity preconditioning to oxygen deprivation in Caenorhabditis elegans. Animals expressing the histamine gated chloride channels (HisCl1) in select cell populations were used to temporally and spatially inactivate the nervous system or tissue prior to an anoxic insult. We find that inactivation of the nervous system for 3 h prior to the insult confers resistance to a 48-h anoxic insult in 4th-stage larval animals. Experiments show that this resistance can be attributed to loss of activity in cholinergic and GABAergic neurons as well as in body wall muscles. These observations indicate that the nervous system activity can mediate the organism's response to anoxia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather L Bennett
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neurology, Research Institute, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Neurology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Biology, Reem-Kayden Center for Science and Computation, Bard College, New York, New York, USA
| | - Patrick D McClanahan
- Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Christopher Fang-Yen
- Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Robert G Kalb
- Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neurology, Research Institute, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Neurology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Department of Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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