Specific sensory neurons and insulin-like peptides modulate food type-dependent oogenesis and fertilization in Caenorhabditis elegans
- Wayne State University, United States
- King's College London, United Kingdom
Abstract
An animal's responses to environmental cues are critical for its reproductive program. Thus, a mechanism that allows the animal to sense and adjust to its environment should make for a more efficient reproductive physiology. Here we demonstrate that in Caenorhabditis elegans specific sensory neurons influence onset of oogenesis through insulin signaling in response to food-derived cues. The chemosensory neurons ASJ modulate oogenesis onset through the insulin-like peptide (ILP) INS‑6. In contrast, other sensory neurons, the olfactory neurons AWA, regulate food type-dependent differences in C. elegans fertilization rates, but not onset of oogenesis. AWA modulates fertilization rates at least partly in parallel to insulin receptor signaling, since the insulin receptor DAF‑2 regulates fertilization independently of food type, which requires ILPs other than INS-6. Together our findings suggest that optimal reproduction requires the integration of diverse food-derived inputs through multiple neuronal signals acting on the C. elegans germline.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supplemental files: Supplementary File 1 for the strain list used in the study and supplemental files to Figures 1 through 8.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Wayne State University (Graduate Research Assistantship)
- Shashwat Mishra
European Research Council (NeuroAge 242666)
- QueeLim Ch'ng
Research Councils UK
- QueeLim Ch'ng
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01 GM108962)
- Joy Alcedo
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2023, Mishra 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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Specific sensory neurons and insulin-like peptides modulate food type-dependent oogenesis and fertilization in Caenorhabditis elegans
eLife 12:e83224.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83224
