Article abstract
Nature Neuroscience 11, 908 - 915 (2008)
Published online: 27 July 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2157
Bidirectional temperature-sensing by a single thermosensory neuron in C. elegans
Daniel Ramot1,3, Bronwyn L MacInnis2,3 & Miriam B Goodman1,2
Abstract
Humans and other animals can sense temperature changes as small as 0.1 °C. How animals achieve such exquisite sensitivity is poorly understood. By recording from the C. elegans thermosensory neurons AFD in vivo, we found that cooling closes and warming opens ion channels. We found that AFD thermosensitivity, which exceeds that of most biological processes by many orders of magnitude, is achieved by nonlinear signal amplification. Mutations in genes encoding subunits of a cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)-gated ion channel (tax-4 and tax-2) and transmembrane guanylate cyclases (gcy-8, gcy-18 and gcy-23) eliminated both cooling- and warming-activated thermoreceptor currents, indicating that a cGMP-mediated pathway links variations in temperature to changes in ionic currents. The resemblance of C. elegans thermosensation to vertebrate photosensation and the sequence similarity between TAX-4 and TAX-2 and subunits of the rod phototransduction channel raise the possibility that nematode thermosensation and vertebrate vision are linked by conserved evolution.
- Program in Neuroscience, Stanford University, 279 Campus Dr., Stanford, California 94305, USA.
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University, 279 Campus Dr., Stanford, California 94305, USA.
- Present addresses: D. E. Shaw Research LLC, 120 W. 45th St., 39th Floor, New York, New York 10036, USA (D.R.).
- Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SA, UK (B.L.M.).
Correspondence to: Miriam B Goodman1,2 e-mail: mbgoodman@stanford.edu
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