TY  - GEN
T1  - The Caenorhabditis elegans tmc-1 is involved in egg-laying inhibition in response to harsh touch
AU  - Kaulich, Eva
AU  - Walker, Denise S
AU  - Tang, Yi-Quan
AU  - Schafer, William Ronald
DO  - 10.17912/micropub.biology.000439
UR  - http://beta.micropublication.org/journals/biology/micropub-biology-000439/
AB  - The TMC proteins are a large family of integral transmembrane proteins which are conserved across the animal kingdom and have emerged as promising candidates for mechanotransducers (Keresztes et al., 2003; Kurima et al., 2002; Kurima et al., 2003). They include eight proteins in mammals (Tmc1-8), one in Drosophila (TMC) and two in C. elegans (TMC-1; TMC-2) (Guo et al., 2016; Keresztes et al., 2003; Kurima et al., 2002; Kurima et al., 2003). Murine studies and human genetic screens have implicated TMCs in mechanotransduction, in particular Tmc1, which is an important deafness gene (see review: (Kawashima et al., 2015)). Reintroducing the Tmc2 gene can rescue sensory transduction and auditory function in mice carrying recessive Tmc1 mutations, suggesting that they can perform redundant functions in inner cochlear hair cells, where they localise to the tips of stereocilia the site of hair cell sensory transduction (Askew et al., 2015). In both C. elegans and Drosophila melanogaster TMCs show a broad expression pattern that is not restricted to sensory neurons (Guo et al., 2016; Tang et al., 2020; Yue et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2015). Drosophila tmc has been shown to regulate larval locomotion, and expression of mammalian Tmc1 or Tmc2 in the tmc-expressing Drosophila neurons rescues mutant phenotypes (Guo et al., 2016). C. elegans has two TMC genes, tmc-1 and tmc-2, that are widely expressed in muscle and in the nervous system (Tang et al., 2020; Yue et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2015). Its wide expression pattern suggests that tmc-1 might serve different functions in the various neurons. Until recently, tmc-1‘s only reported function in C. elegans neurons was in chemosensation (Chatzigeorgiou et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2016). However, we and others have identified tmc-1 expression in C. elegans neurons involved in mechanotransduction, such as the OLQ neurons and the high-threshold mechanosensory neuron ALA (Tang et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2015). The expression of tmc-1 in ALA gives us the opportunity to investigate the conserved mechanosensory function of TMCs in vivo. tmc-1 mutants accumulate more eggs and TMC-1 is known to function as a sodium leak channel in both the vulval muscles and the HSN egg laying command neurons, modulating membrane excitability (Yue et al., 2018). However, ALA is required for the inhibition of egg-laying in response to a strong mechanical stimulus and mutations that impair ALA function abolish this harsh touch-induced inhibition (Sanders et al., 2013). We therefore investigated whether TMC-1 functions in mechanotransduction in ALA.
PY  - 2021
JO  - microPublication Biology
ER  -