TY  - GEN
T1  - The HSN egg-laying command neurons regulate the defecation motor program in Caenorhabditis elegans: Integration
AU  - Ravi, Bhavya
AU  - Garcia, Jessica
AU  - Collins, Kevin M
DO  - 10.17912/micropub.biology.000095
UR  - http://beta.micropublication.org/journals/biology/micropub-biology-000095/
AB  - We have identified a relationship between egg-laying and defecation behaviors in C. elegans. As shown in Figure 1A, the egg-laying and defecation motor circuits show synaptic connectivity. The HSN command neurons and VC motor neurons make and receive synapses from the excitatory GABAergic AVL and DVB motoneurons that regulate defecation (White, J.G. et al. 1986). Serotonin and Gao signaling, which regulate egg laying behavior, can also signal to inhibit defecation (Ségalat et al. 1995; Waggoner et al. 1998; Tanis et al. 2008). Because evidence shows that both the egg-laying active state and the defecation motor program (DMP) are both linked to changes in forward and reverse locomotion (Hardaker et al. 2001; Nagy et al. 2015), we reasoned there may be a similar relationship between expulsive behaviors that drive either egg laying or defecation. Our experiments document an association between HSN Ca2+ activity and a reduced frequency of defecation (Ravi and Collins 2019) [See accompanying microPub Ravi and Collins (I) 2019]. Animals lacking HSNs have a reduced defecation frequency (Garcia and Collins 2019) [See accompanying microPub Garcia and Collins (II) 2019]. We hypothesize that egg-laying and defecation behaviors are coordinated because they use the same internal hydrostatic pressure to drive expulsion of uterine or intestinal contents, respectively.
PY  - 2019
JO  - microPublication Biology
ER  -