Identification of molecular nociceptors in Octopus vulgaris through functional characterisation in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: Nociception, a phenomenon crucial for animal survival, deploys evolutionarily conserved molecular mechanisms. Among invertebrate species, cephalopods are of particular interest as they possess a well-developed brain speculated to be able to encode pain-like states. This has led to their inclusion in the Directive 2010/63 EU for welfare protection. However, the molecular mechanisms of nociception in cephalopods are still poorly characterised and it is important to address this knowledge gap to better understand cephalopods' capacity to express pain states. Here we describe a bioinformatic strategy utilising conserved nociceptive genes, to identify the orthologous candidates in the Octopus vulgaris transcriptome. We identified 51 genes we predict to function in nociception. These add to the

SUBMITTER: Pieroni EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12919962 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature