Hypoxia and the HIF-1 transcriptional pathway reorganize a neuronal circuit for oxygen-dependent behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans.

ABSTRACT: Rapid behavioral responses to oxygen are generated by specialized sensory neurons that sense hypoxia and hyperoxia. On a slower time scale, many cells respond to oxygen through the activity of the hypoxia-inducible transcription factor HIF-1. Here, we show that in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, prolonged growth in hypoxia alters the neuronal circuit for oxygen preference by activating the hif-1 pathway. Activation of hif-1 by hypoxia or by mutations in its negative regulator egl-9/prolyl hydroxylase shifts behavioral oxygen preferences to lower concentrations and eliminates a regulatory input from food. At a neuronal level, hif-1 activation transforms a distributed, regulated neuronal network for oxygen preference into a smaller, fixed network that is constitutively active. The hif-1

SUBMITTER: Chang AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2438248 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature