title: Analysis of the NK2 homeobox geneceh-24reveals sublateral motor neuron control of left-right turning during sleep.
abstract: Sleep is a behavior that is found in all animals that have a nervous system and that have been studied carefully. InCaenorhabditis eleganslarvae, sleep is associated with a turning behavior, called flipping, in which animals rotate 180° about their longitudinal axis. However, the molecular and neural substrates of this enigmatic behavior are not known. Here, we identified the conserved NK-2 homeobox geneceh-24to be crucially required for flipping.ceh-24is required for the formation of processes and for cholinergic function of sublateral motor neurons, which separately innervate the four body muscle quadrants. Knockdown of cholinergic function in a subset of these sublateral neurons, the SIAs, abolishes flipping. The SIAs depolarize during flipping and their optogenetic activation induces flipping in a fraction of events. Thus, we identified the sublateral SIA neurons to control the three-dimensional movements of flipping. These neurons may also control other types of motion.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Juliane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schwarz
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7689-8617
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bringmann
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000502:physiology*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D007814:Larva / Q000502:physiology; D009043:Motor Activity; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D012890:Sleep
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; C111093:Ceh-24 protein, C elegans; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins
keywords: C. elegans; behavior; calcium imaging; neuroscience; optogenetics; sleep