Caenorhabditis elegans exhibits positive gravitaxis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Gravity plays an important role in most life forms on Earth. Yet, a complete molecular understanding of sensing and responding to gravity is lacking. While there are anatomical differences among animals, there is a remarkable conservation across phylogeny at the molecular level. Caenorhabditis elegans is suitable for gene discovery approaches that may help identify molecular mechanisms of gravity sensing. It is unknown whether C. elegans can sense the direction of gravity.

Results

In aqueous solutions, motile C. elegans nematodes align their swimming direction with the gravity vector direction while immobile worms do not. The worms orient downward regardless of whether they are suspended in a solution less dense (downward sedimentation) or denser (upward sedimenta

SUBMITTER: Chen WL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8439010 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature