ArticleNeural development2009
Interactions between innexins UNC-7 and UNC-9 mediate electrical synapse specificity in the Caenorhabditis elegans locomotory nervous system.
Article in Neural development, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers.
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68 citing papers in PubMed, 104 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Cell body clustering drives gap junction-mediated synchronous activity in command neurons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Gap junction innexin asymmetry in C. elegans suggests a diode blocking mechanism to prevent antidromic backpropagation from motor neurons to command interneurons.microPublication biology · 2026Article
- In situ structure of a gap junction-stomatin complex.Science advances · 2025Article
- The roles of feedback loops in the Caenorhabditis elegans rhythmic forward locomotion.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
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- CFI-1 functions unilaterally to restrict gap junction formation in C. elegans.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2025Article
- A hyperpolarizing neuron recruits undocked innexin hemichannels to transmit neural information inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Locomotion modulates olfactory learning through proprioception in C. elegans.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The head mesodermal cell couples FMRFamide neuropeptide signaling with rhythmic muscle contraction in C. elegans.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Endogenous pannexin1 channels form functional intercellular cell-cell channels with characteristic voltage-dependent properties.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Co-transmission of neuropeptides and monoamines choreograph the C. elegans escape response.PLoS genetics · 2022Article
- An assessment of genome-editing efficiency of a newly developed Cas9 inmicroPublication biology · 2022Article
- cAMP controls a trafficking mechanism that maintains the neuron specificity and subcellular placement of electrical synapses.Developmental cell · 2021Article
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- Neural Tissue Homeostasis and Repair Is Regulated via CS and DS Proteoglycan Motifs.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Review
- Gap junctions: historical discoveries and new findings in theBiology open · 2020Review
- Molecular basis of junctional current rectification at an electrical synapse.Science advances · 2020Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
backgroundApproximately 10% of Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system synapses are electrical, that is, gap junctions composed of innexins. The locomotory nervous system consists of several pairs of interneurons and three major classes of motor neurons, all with stereotypical patterns of connectivity that include gap junctions. Mutations in the two innexin genes unc-7 and unc-9 result in identical uncoordinated movement phenotypes, and their respective gene products were investigated for their contribution to electrical synapse connectivity.
resultsunc-7 encodes three innexin isoforms. Two of these, UNC-7S and UNC-7SR, are functionally equivalent and play an essential role in coordinated locomotion. UNC-7S and UNC-7SR are widely expressed and co-localize extensively with green fluorescent protein-tagged innexin UNC-9 in the ventral and dorsal nerve cords. A subset of UNC-7S/SR expression visualizes gap junctions formed between the AVB forward command interneurons and their B class motor neuron partners. Experiments indicate that expression of UNC-7S/SR in AVB and expression of UNC-9 in B motor neurons is necessary for these gap junctions to form. In Xenopus oocyte pairs, both UNC-7S and UNC-9 form homomeric gap junctions, and together they form heterotypic channels. Xenopus oocyte studies and co-localization studies in C. elegans suggest that UNC-7S and UNC-9 do not heteromerize in the same hemichannel, leading to the model that hemichannels in AVB:B motor neuron gap junctions are homomeric and heterotypic.
conclusionUNC-7S and UNC-9 are widely expressed and contribute to a large number of the gap junctions identified in the locomotory nervous system. Proper AVB:B gap junction formation requires UNC-7S expression in AVB interneurons and UNC-9 expression in B motor neurons. More broadly, this illustrates that innexin identity is critical for electrical synapse specificity, but differential (compartmentalized) innexin expression cannot account for all of the specificity seen in C. elegans, and other factors must influence the determination of synaptic partners.
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