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Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans

Neural circuits are functional ensembles of neurons that are selectively interconnected by chemical or electrical synapses. Here we describe a synthetic biology approach to the study of neural circuits, whereby new electrical synapses can be introduced in novel sites in the neuronal circuitry to rep...

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Autores principales: Rabinowitch, Ithai, Chatzigeorgiou, Marios, Zhao, Buyun, Treinin, Millet, Schafer, William R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Pub. Group 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4109004/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25026983
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5442
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author Rabinowitch, Ithai
Chatzigeorgiou, Marios
Zhao, Buyun
Treinin, Millet
Schafer, William R.
author_facet Rabinowitch, Ithai
Chatzigeorgiou, Marios
Zhao, Buyun
Treinin, Millet
Schafer, William R.
author_sort Rabinowitch, Ithai
collection PubMed
description Neural circuits are functional ensembles of neurons that are selectively interconnected by chemical or electrical synapses. Here we describe a synthetic biology approach to the study of neural circuits, whereby new electrical synapses can be introduced in novel sites in the neuronal circuitry to reprogram behaviour. We added electrical synapses composed of the vertebrate gap junction protein Cx36 between Caenorhabditis elegans chemosensory neurons with opposite intrinsic responses to salt. Connecting these neurons by an ectopic electrical synapse led to a loss of lateral asymmetry and altered chemotaxis behaviour. In a second example, introducing Cx36 into an inhibitory chemical synapse between an olfactory receptor neuron and an interneuron changed the sign of the connection from negative to positive, and abolished the animal’s behavioural response to benzaldehyde. These data demonstrate a synthetic strategy to rewire behavioural circuits by engineering synaptic connectivity in C. elegans.
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spelling pubmed-41090042014-08-15 Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans Rabinowitch, Ithai Chatzigeorgiou, Marios Zhao, Buyun Treinin, Millet Schafer, William R. Nat Commun Article Neural circuits are functional ensembles of neurons that are selectively interconnected by chemical or electrical synapses. Here we describe a synthetic biology approach to the study of neural circuits, whereby new electrical synapses can be introduced in novel sites in the neuronal circuitry to reprogram behaviour. We added electrical synapses composed of the vertebrate gap junction protein Cx36 between Caenorhabditis elegans chemosensory neurons with opposite intrinsic responses to salt. Connecting these neurons by an ectopic electrical synapse led to a loss of lateral asymmetry and altered chemotaxis behaviour. In a second example, introducing Cx36 into an inhibitory chemical synapse between an olfactory receptor neuron and an interneuron changed the sign of the connection from negative to positive, and abolished the animal’s behavioural response to benzaldehyde. These data demonstrate a synthetic strategy to rewire behavioural circuits by engineering synaptic connectivity in C. elegans. Nature Pub. Group 2014-07-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4109004/ /pubmed/25026983 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5442 Text en Copyright © 2014, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Rabinowitch, Ithai
Chatzigeorgiou, Marios
Zhao, Buyun
Treinin, Millet
Schafer, William R.
Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans
title Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans
title_full Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans
title_fullStr Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans
title_full_unstemmed Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans
title_short Rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic C. elegans
title_sort rewiring neural circuits by the insertion of ectopic electrical synapses in transgenic c. elegans
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4109004/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25026983
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5442
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