A gene-expression-based neural code for food abundance that modulates lifespan.
Elife
; 4: e06259, 2015 May 12.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25962853
ABSTRACT
How the nervous system internally represents environmental food availability is poorly understood. Here, we show that quantitative information about food abundance is encoded by combinatorial neuron-specific gene-expression of conserved TGFß and serotonin pathway components in Caenorhabditis elegans. Crosstalk and auto-regulation between these pathways alters the shape, dynamic range, and population variance of the gene-expression responses of daf-7 (TGFß) and tph-1 (tryptophan hydroxylase) to food availability. These intricate regulatory features provide distinct mechanisms for TGFß and serotonin signaling to tune the accuracy of this multi-neuron code daf-7 primarily regulates gene-expression variability, while tph-1 primarily regulates the dynamic range of gene-expression responses. This code is functional because daf-7 and tph-1 mutations bidirectionally attenuate food level-dependent changes in lifespan. Our results reveal a neural code for food abundance and demonstrate that gene expression serves as an additional layer of information processing in the nervous system to control long-term physiology.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Triptófano Hidroxilasa
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Factor de Crecimiento Transformador beta
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Caenorhabditis elegans
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Proteínas de Caenorhabditis elegans
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Longevidad
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Sistema Nervioso
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Neuronas
Límite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Elife
Año:
2015
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Reino Unido