title: A cellular and regulatory map of the GABAergic nervous system ofC. elegans.
abstract: Neurotransmitter maps are important complements to anatomical maps and represent an invaluable resource to understand nervous system function and development. We report here a comprehensive map of neurons in theC. elegansnervous system that contain the neurotransmitter GABA, revealing twice as many GABA-positive neuron classes as previously reported. We define previously unknown glia-like cells that take up GABA, as well as 'GABA uptake neurons' which do not synthesize GABA but take it up from the extracellular environment, and we map the expression of previously uncharacterized ionotropic GABA receptors. We use the map of GABA-positive neurons for a comprehensive analysis of transcriptional regulators that define the GABA phenotype. We synthesize our findings of specification of GABAergic neurons with previous reports on the specification of glutamatergic and cholinergic neurons into a nervous system-wide regulatory map which defines neurotransmitter specification mechanisms for more than half of all neuron classes inC. elegans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, United States.
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gendrel
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, United States.
authors.forename: Emily G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Atlas
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia University, New York, United States.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7634-2854
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Hobert
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D059330:GABAergic Neurons; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks; D009415:Nerve Net; D009420:Nervous System / Q000033:anatomy & histology*
keywords: C. elegans; developmental biology; neuronal differentiation; neuroscience; neurotransmitters; stem cells; transcription factors