FMRFamide-like peptides expand the behavioral repertoire of a densely connected nervous system.

ABSTRACT: Animals, including humans, can adapt to environmental stress through phenotypic plasticity. The free-living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans can adapt to harsh environments by undergoing a whole-animal change, involving exiting reproductive development and entering the stress-resistant dauer larval stage. The dauer is a dispersal stage with dauer-specific behaviors for finding and stowing onto carrier animals, but how dauers acquire these behaviors, despite having a physically limited nervous system of 302 neurons, is poorly understood. We compared dauer and reproductive development using whole-animal RNA sequencing at fine time points and at sufficient depth to measure transcriptional changes within single cells. We detected 8,042 genes differentially expressed during dauer and repr

SUBMITTER: Lee JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5740649 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature