Authors
James LaVilliers, James Dillon, Vincent O'Connor
Published in
microPublication biology. Volume 2026. Epub Jul 07, 2026.
Abstract
Food interaction behaviours in C. elegans are modulated by biogenic amine signalling in response to mechanosensory cues. C. elegans exhibits an integrated response in which there is slowing on food contact that leads to a designated basal slowing response in the face of subsequent accumulated time on the bacterial food lawn. The discrete designation of food contact and basal slowing motility is reinforced by their selective dependence on serotonin and dopamine signalling respectively. The basal slowing is modulated by food deprivation causing a so called enhanced basal slowing (enhanced slowing). Here we present an integrated motility assay format capable of investigating the integrated response encapsulating food contact slowing and basal slowing. We compare motility in this contiguous motility assay in well-fed and food deprived worms. This approach reproduces previous findings highlighting dopaminergic control of basal slowing and serotonergic control of food entry slowing. We show that the basal slowing response seems dependent on an extended time course of dopamine signalling to sustain the slowing effect. Furthermore, we show the context dependence of food entry slowing, requiring a food deprived background to show a significant difference from the wild type. Additionally, 5-HT modulates locomotory rate during chemotaxis in a context dependent manner. The biogenic amines tyramine and octopamine do not modulate food entry slowing or basal slowing.
PMID:
42502754
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 26 Jul 2026.
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