The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is commonly used as a genetic model organism for dissecting integration of the sensory and motor systems¹. Despite extensive genetic and behavioural analyses that have led to the identification of many genes and neural circuits involved in regulating C. elegans locomotion behaviour¹, it remains unclear whether and how somatosensory feedback modulates motor output during locomotion. In particular, no stretch receptors have been identified in C. elegans, raising the issue of whether stretch-receptor-mediated proprioception is used by C. elegans to regulate its locomotion behaviour. Here we have characterized TRP-4, the C. elegans homologue of the mechanosensitive TRPN channel. We show that trp-4 mutant worms bend their body abnormally, exhibiting a body posture distinct from that of wild-type worms during locomotion, suggesting that TRP-4 is involved in stretch-receptor-mediated proprioception. We show that TRP-4 acts in a single neuron, DVA, to mediate its function in proprioception, and that the activity of DVA can be stimulated by body stretch. DVA both positively and negatively modulates locomotion, providing a unique mechanism whereby a single neuron can fine-tune motor activity. Thus, DVA represents a stretch receptor neuron that regulates sensory–motor integration during C. elegans locomotion.

1. Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, and
2. Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

Correspondence to: X. Z. Shawn Xu^1,2 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to X.Z.S.X (Email: shawnxu@umich.edu).

Received 7 July 2005 | Accepted 19 December 2005

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