Ethanol interferes with gustatory plasticity in Caenorhabditis elegans |
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Authors: | Wang Ying Tang Lichun Feng Xiaojun Du Wei Liu Bi-Feng |
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Affiliation: | Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics at Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics-Hubei Bioinformatics & Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory, Department of Systems Biology, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China |
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Abstract: | Ethanol affects the formation of learning and memory in many species. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the behavioral effects of ethanol are still poorly understood. In Caenorhabditis elegans, gustatory plasticity is a simple learning paradigm, in which animals after prolonged pre-exposure to a chemo-attractive salt in the absence of food show chemo-aversion to this salt during subsequent chemotaxis test stage. We characterized the effect of ethanol on this simple learning model. Our results showed that ethanol administration interfered with gustatory plasticity during pre-exposure or test stage in well-fed worms. Genetic analysis revealed that one mutant previously implicated involved in acute ethanol responses, slo-1, as well as two mutants with defects in serotonin synthesis, tph-1 and bas-1, failed to exhibit ethanol interference with gustatory plasticity. Furthermore, two metabotropic serotonin receptors, SER-4 and SER-7, were found to be involved in ethanol-mediated gustatory plasticity. In addition, the tph-1 and ser-4 loci were also involved in ethanol's effect on locomotion behavior. These data suggested an essential role of serotonin signaling in modulating acute effects of ethanol. |
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Keywords: | Caenorhabditis elegans Ethanol Chemotaxis Gustatory plasticity Serotonin |
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