EA: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review and editing
IR: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing - original draft, Writing - review and editing
Valence of animal pheromone blends can vary due to differences in relative abundance of individual components. For example, in
In panels A-F, each dot represents the number of GPCs in one gonad arm of one hermaphrodite; grey dots represent animals raised on control plates, orange dots represent animals exposed to ascr#10 starting at 48 hours after release from L1 arrest (after the L4/adult transition but before the onset of egg laying) until being tested on Day 5 of adulthood, red dots represent animals that were exposed to a 50:50 blend of ascr#10 + ascr#3. (A) The germline response to ascr#10 and a blend of ascr#10 + ascr#3 in wild type N2 hermaphrodites. This panel illustrates the logic of our paradigm – exposure to ascr#10 increases the number of germline precursor cells (GPCs), whereas exposure to a 50:50 blend of ascr#10 + ascr#3 has no effect. Inability to respond to ascr#3 would result in a similar increase in GPCs on ascr#10 as on the ascr#10 + ascr#3 blend. Data in this panel were previously published (Aprison and Ruvinsky, 2017). The germline response to ascaroside pheromones in (B) two strains that ablate ASG and BAG neurons, (C)
In
Using this approach, we identified a set of six pairs of sensory neurons (ASG, ASI, ASJ, ASK, AWB, and AWC), at least some of which being required for the ascr#3 response (Aprison and Ruvinsky, 2017). Our previous experiments with neuron-specific ablations established that ASJ, AWB, and AWC neurons were required for ascr#3 response, whereas ASI were required for ascr#10 response, and ASK played no obvious role in our paradigm (Aprison and Ruvinsky, 2017). In the present study, using strains that ablate ASG (as well as BAG) neurons (Juozaityte
The six pairs of sensory neurons, ASG, ASI, ASJ, ASK, AWB, and AWC, express
It is not currently clear whether ODR-1 in AWB is involved in sensing ascr#3. Although AWB are amphid sensory neurons, they are generally thought to sense volatile repellents (Bargmann, 2006), whereas ascarosides do not appear to be volatile. It is possible that ODR-1 in AWB modulates activity of an ascr#3-sensing neuron(s) or is required further downstream for the germline response to ascr#3. Because our paradigm relied on scoring the population of germline precursor cells, we conservatively conclude that all neurons and gene products identified so far are involved in “the germline response to ascr#10 and ascr#3”, although we assume that at least some of these are required for sensing the two sex pheromones and comparing their concentrations. The current state of knowledge of the sensory components involved in the germline response to ascarosides is summarized in Figure 1G.
We used standard
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N2 | wild type | CGC |
CX11697 |
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Bargmann lab |
RJP3130 |
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Pocock lab |
OH15422 |
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CGC |
CX2065 |
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CGC |
FG622 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG623 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG485 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG490 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG491 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG560 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG561 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG557 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG558 |
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Ferkey lab |
FG559 |
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Ferkey lab |
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This work was funded in part by the NIH (R01GM126125) grant to I.R.