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Multiparameter behavioral analyses provide insights to mechanisms of cyanide resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: Environmental toxicants influence development, behavior, and ultimately survival. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has proven to be an exceptionally powerful model for toxicological studies. Here, we develop novel technologies to describe the effects of cyanide toxicity with high spatiotemporal resolution. Importantly, we use these methods to examine the genetic underpinnings of cyanide resistance. Caenorhabditis elegans that lack the EGL-9 oxygen sensing enzyme have been shown to be resistant to hydrogen cyanide (HCN) gas produced by the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. We demonstrate that the cyanide resistance exhibited by egl-9 mutants is completely dependent on the HIF-1 hypoxia-inducible factor and is mediated by the cysl-2 cysteine synthase, which likely functions in metabolic pathways that inactivate cyanide. Further, the expression of cysl-2 correlates with the degree of cyanide resistance exhibited in each genetic background. We find that each mutant exhibits similar relative resistance to HCN gas on plates or to aqueous potassium cyanide in microfluidic chambers. The design of the microfluidic devices, in combination with real-time imaging, addresses a series of challenges presented by mutant phenotypes and by the chemical nature of the toxicant. The microfluidic assay produces a set of behavioral parameters with increased resolution that describe cyanide toxicity and resistance in C. elegans, and this is particularly useful in analyzing subtle phenotypes. These multiparameter analyses of C. elegans behavior hold great potential as a means to monitor the effects of toxicants or chemical interventions in real time and to study the biological networks that underpin toxicant resistance.

SUBMITTER: Saldanha JN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3748764 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Multiparameter behavioral analyses provide insights to mechanisms of cyanide resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Saldanha Jenifer N JN Parashar Archana A Pandey Santosh S Powell-Coffman Jo Anne JA

Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology 20130626 1

Environmental toxicants influence development, behavior, and ultimately survival. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has proven to be an exceptionally powerful model for toxicological studies. Here, we develop novel technologies to describe the effects of cyanide toxicity with high spatiotemporal resolution. Importantly, we use these methods to examine the genetic underpinnings of cyanide resistance. Caenorhabditis elegans that lack the EGL-9 oxygen sensing enzyme have been shown to be resistan ...[more]

PMID: 23805000

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Project description:In order to develop a better understanding of the role environmental toxicants may play in the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases, it has become increasingly important to optimize sensitive methods for quickly screening toxicants to determine their ability to disrupt neuronal function. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can help with this effort. This species has an integrated nervous system producing behavioral function, provides easy access for molecular studies, has a rapid lifespan, and is an inexpensive model. This study focuses on methods of measuring neurodegeneration involving the dopaminergic system and the identification of compounds with actions that disrupt dopamine function in the model organism C. elegans. Several dopamine-mediated locomotory behaviors, Area Exploration, Body Bends, and Reversals, as well as Swimming-Induced Paralysis and Learned 2-Nonanone Avoidance, were compared to determine the best behavioral method for screening purposes. These behavioral endpoints were also compared to morphological scoring of neurodegeneration in the dopamine neurons. We found that in adult worms, Area Exploration is more advantageous than the other behavioral methods for identifying DA-deficient locomotion and is comparable to neuromorphological scoring outputs. For larval stage worms, locomotion was an unreliable endpoint, and neuronal scoring appeared to be the best method. We compared the wild-type N2 strain to the commonly used dat-1p::GFP reporter strains BY200 and BZ555, and we further characterized the dopamine-deficient strains, cat-2 e1112 and cat-2 n4547. In contrast to published results, we found that the cat-2 strains slowed on food almost as much as N2s. Both showed decreased levels of cat-2 mRNA and DA content, rather than none, with cat-2 e1112 having the greatest reduction in DA content in comparison to N2. Finally, we compared and contrasted strengths, limitations, cost, and equipment needs for all primary methods for analysis of the dopamine system in C. elegans.

Project description:BackgroundNociception evokes a rapid withdrawal behavior designed to protect the animal from potential danger. C. elegans performs a reflexive reversal or forward locomotory response when presented with noxious stimuli at the head or tail, respectively. Here, we have developed an assay with precise spatial and temporal control of an infrared laser stimulus that targets one-fifth of the worm's body and quantifies multiple aspects of the worm's escape response.ResultsWhen stimulated at the head, we found that the escape response can be elicited by changes in temperature as small as a fraction of a degree Celsius, and that aspects of the escape behavior such as the response latency and the escape direction change advantageously as the amplitude of the noxious stimulus increases. We have mapped the behavioral receptive field of thermal nociception along the entire body of the worm, and show a midbody avoidance behavior distinct from the head and tail responses. At the midbody, the worm is sensitive to a change in the stimulus location as small as 80 ?m. This midbody response is probabilistic, producing either a backward, forward or pause state after the stimulus. The distribution of these states shifts from reverse-biased to forward-biased as the location of the stimulus moves from the middle towards the anterior or posterior of the worm, respectively. We identified PVD as the thermal nociceptor for the midbody response using calcium imaging, genetic ablation and laser ablation. Analyses of mutants suggest the possibility that TRPV channels and glutamate are involved in facilitating the midbody noxious response.ConclusionThrough high resolution quantitative behavioral analysis, we have comprehensively characterized the C. elegans escape response to noxious thermal stimuli applied along its body, and found a novel midbody response. We further identified the nociceptor PVD as required to sense noxious heat at the midbody and can spatially differentiate localized thermal stimuli.

Dataset Information

Multiparameter behavioral analyses provide insights to mechanisms of cyanide resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Publications

Multiparameter behavioral analyses provide insights to mechanisms of cyanide resistance in Caenorhabditis elegans.

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