Sexually Dimorphic unc-6/Netrin Expression Controls Sex-Specific Maintenance of Synaptic Connectivity.

ABSTRACT: Nervous systems display intriguing patterns of sexual dimorphisms across the animal kingdom, but the mechanisms that generate such dimorphisms remain poorly characterized. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a number of neurons present in both sexes are synaptically connected to one another in a sexually dimorphic manner as a result of sex-specific synaptic pruning and maintenance [1-3]. We define here a mechanism for the male-specific maintenance of the synaptic connections of the phasmid sensory neuron PHB and its male-specific target, the sex-shared AVG interneuron. We show that the C. elegans Netrin ortholog UNC-6, signaling through its cognate receptor UNC-40/DCC and the CED-5/DOCK180 guanine nucleotide exchange factor, is both required and sufficient for male-specific synaptic ma

SUBMITTER: Weinberg P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5820123 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature