Natural variation in a neuropeptide Y receptor homolog modifies social behavior and food response in C. elegans.
Natural isolates of C. elegans exhibit either solitary or social feeding behavior. Solitary foragers move slowly on a bacterial lawn and disperse across it, while social foragers move rapidly on bacteria and aggregate together. A loss-of-function mutation in the npr-1 gene, which encodes a predicted G protein- coupled receptor similar to neuropeptide Y receptors, causes a solitary strain to take on social behavior. Two isoforms of NPR-1 that differ at a single residue occur in the wild. One isoform, NPR-1 215F, is found exclusively in social strains, while the other isoform, NPR-1 215V, is found exclusively in solitary strains. An NPR-1 215V transgene can induce solitary feeding behavior in a wild social strain. Thus, isoforms of a putative neuropeptide receptor generate natural variation in C. elegans feeding behavior.[1]References
- Natural variation in a neuropeptide Y receptor homolog modifies social behavior and food response in C. elegans. de Bono, M., Bargmann, C.I. Cell (1998) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg