Caenorhabditis elegans Body Mechanics Are Regulated by Body Wall Muscle Tone
| Autor: | Miriam B. Goodman, Bryan C. Petzold, Chloé Powell, C. L. Roozeboom, Pierre Ponce, Beth L. Pruitt, Sung-Jin Park |
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| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Předmět: |
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Muscle Relaxation Hydrostatic pressure Biophysics Cholinergic Agonists Optogenetics Muscle Motility and Motor Protein 03 medical and health sciences Muscle tone 0302 clinical medicine medicine Animals Body Size GABA-A Receptor Agonists Caenorhabditis elegans Mechanical Phenomena 030304 developmental biology Paraplegia 0303 health sciences Mechanosensation biology Muscimol Muscles Stiffness Anatomy biology.organism_classification Biomechanical Phenomena medicine.anatomical_structure Muscle relaxation Levamisole medicine.symptom 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Muscle Contraction Muscle contraction |
| Zdroj: | Biophysical Journal. 100:1977-1985 |
| ISSN: | 0006-3495 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.bpj.2011.02.035 |
| Popis: | Body mechanics in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans are central to both mechanosensation and locomotion. Previous work revealed that the mechanics of the outer shell, rather than internal hydrostatic pressure, dominates stiffness. This shell is comprised of the cuticle and the body wall muscles, either of which could contribute to the body mechanics. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the muscles are an important contributor by modulating muscle tone using optogenetic and pharmacological tools, and measuring animal stiffness using piezoresistive microcantilevers. As a proxy for muscle tone, we measured changes in animal length under the same treatments. We found that treatments that induce muscle contraction generally resulted in body shortening and stiffening. Conversely, methods to relax the muscles more modestly increased length and decreased stiffness. The results support the idea that body wall muscle activation contributes significantly to and can modulate C. elegans body mechanics. Modulation of body stiffness would enable nematodes to tune locomotion or swimming gaits and may have implications in touch sensation. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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