Stress and sensory neurons

BROCCO MARCELA ADRIANA; FERNÁNDEZ, ELIANA M; MONTELEONE, MELISA C

Rosario

Simposio; IBRO Symposium Neural mechanism of aging, stress and neurodegeneration; 2020

IBR-CONICET

Stress and sensory neurons: Shedding light into M6a function using C. elegansMarcela A. Brocco, Eliana M. Fernández, Melisa C. Monteleone Instituto de Investigaciones Biotecnológicas, Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM); Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) San Martín; Buenos Aires, ArgentinaFor the last twenty years, we have studied stress effects on nervous system genes. Faced with a threat, all organisms display a physiological reaction to avoid an imbalance in their homeostasis. This reaction is stress. Stress is beneficial to avoid damages, but if it becomes chronic, it damages the body. In human, chronic stress causes several diseases, including anxiety and depression. Using different rodent models, we found changes in several genes from hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, among those genes, the for the neuronal glycoprotein M6a (gpm6a). We found that M6a participates in neuronal differentiation, morphology establishment and, probably, in synapse formation. However, its function is unknown, yet. To learn more about M6a in simpler models, we used invertebrates such as D. melanogaster and C. elegans. In flies, we found a new role for M6a, as hypomorphic flies for M6 (the M6a ortholog) are sterile because female flies fail to lay eggs. This is due to an altered architecture of ovarian follicular cells. In worms, similar to flies, the lack of NMGP-1 (the M6a ortholog) reduced egg-laying and induced a bagging phenotype. In addition, these worms show a failure to exit from dauer stage, suggesting a role for NMGP-1/M6a in sensory neuron functions. Altogether, our work reveals for the first time the function of M6a in C. elegans, and demonstrates an ancestral and highly conserved role of this type of membrane glycoproteins.