Magnetosensitive neurons mediate geomagnetic orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans
- Illinois State University, United States
- University of Texas at Austin, United States
Abstract
Many organisms spanning from bacteria to mammals orient to the earth's magnetic field. For a few animals, central neurons responsive to earth-strength magnetic fields have been identified; however, magnetosensory neurons have yet to be identified in any animal. We show that the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans orients to the earth's magnetic field during vertical burrowing migrations. Well-fed worms migrated up, while starved worms migrated down. Populations isolated from around the world, migrated at angles to the magnetic vector that would optimize vertical translation in their native soil, with northern- and southern-hemisphere worms displaying opposite migratory preferences. Magnetic orientation and vertical migrations required the TAX-4 cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel in the AFD sensory neuron pair. Calcium imaging showed that these neurons respond to magnetic fields even without synaptic input. C. elegans may have adapted magnetic orientation to simplify their vertical burrowing migration by reducing the orientation task from three dimensions to one.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Russ Fernald, Stanford University, United States
Publication history
- Received: March 15, 2015
- Accepted: June 16, 2015
- Accepted Manuscript published: June 17, 2015 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: August 5, 2015 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2015, Vidal-Gadea et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Magnetosensitive neurons mediate geomagnetic orientation in Caenorhabditis elegans
eLife 4:e07493.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.07493
