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Behavioral and immune responses to infection require Gαq- RhoA signaling in C. elegans.

McMullan, R; Anderson, A; Nurrish, S; (2012) Behavioral and immune responses to infection require Gαq- RhoA signaling in C. elegans. PLoS Pathog , 8 (2) , Article e1002530. 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002530. Green open access

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Abstract

Following pathogen infection the hosts' nervous and immune systems react with coordinated responses to the danger. A key question is how the neuronal and immune responses to pathogens are coordinated, are there common signaling pathways used by both responses? Using C. elegans we show that infection by pathogenic strains of M. nematophilum, but not exposure to avirulent strains, triggers behavioral and immune responses both of which require a conserved Gαq-RhoGEF Trio-Rho signaling pathway. Upon infection signaling by the Gαq pathway within cholinergic motorneurons is necessary and sufficient to increase release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and increase locomotion rates and these behavioral changes result in C. elegans leaving lawns of M. nematophilum. In the immune response to infection signaling by the Gαq pathway within rectal epithelial cells is necessary and sufficient to cause changes in cell morphology resulting in tail swelling that limits the infection. These Gαq mediated behavioral and immune responses to infection are separate, act in a cell autonomous fashion and activation of this pathway in the appropriate cells can trigger these responses in the absence of infection. Within the rectal epithelium the Gαq signaling pathway cooperates with a Ras signaling pathway to activate a Raf-ERK-MAPK pathway to trigger the cell morphology changes, whereas in motorneurons Gαq signaling triggers behavioral responses independent of Ras signaling. Thus, a conserved Gαq pathway cooperates with cell specific factors in the nervous and immune systems to produce appropriate responses to pathogen. Thus, our data suggests that ligands for Gq coupled receptors are likely to be part of the signals generated in response to M. nematophilum infection.

Type: Article
Title: Behavioral and immune responses to infection require Gαq- RhoA signaling in C. elegans.
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002530
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1002530
Language: English
Additional information: © 2012 McMullan et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. These studies were funded entirely by the MRC as part of a core grant to the MRC Cell Biology Unit. RJM and AA are funded as part of a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship to RJM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Keywords: Animals, Animals, Genetically Modified, Behavior, Animal, Caenorhabditis elegans, Corynebacterium Infections, GTP-Binding Protein alpha Subunits, Gq-G11, Signal Transduction, rhoA GTP-Binding Protein
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1368682
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