Mena Wilson, Diegelmann Sören, Wegener Christian, Ewer John
Centro Interdisciplinario de Neurociencias de Valparaíso, Universidad de Valparaiso, Valparaiso, Chile.
Theodor-Boveri-Institute, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Elife. 2016 Dec 15;5:e19686. doi: 10.7554/eLife.19686.
Neuropeptides play a key role in the regulation of behaviors and physiological responses including alertness, social recognition, and hunger, yet, their mechanism of action is poorly understood. Here, we focus on the endocrine control ecdysis behavior, which is used by arthropods to shed their cuticle at the end of every molt. Ecdysis is triggered by ETH (Ecdysis triggering hormone), and we show that the response of peptidergic neurons that produce CCAP (crustacean cardioactive peptide), which are key targets of ETH and control the onset of ecdysis behavior, depends fundamentally on the actions of neuropeptides produced by other direct targets of ETH and released in a broad paracrine manner within the CNS; by autocrine influences from the CCAP neurons themselves; and by inhibitory actions mediated by GABA. Our findings provide insights into how this critical insect behavior is controlled and general principles for understanding how neuropeptides organize neuronal activity and behaviors.
神经肽在包括警觉性、社会识别和饥饿在内的行为和生理反应调节中发挥着关键作用，然而，它们的作用机制却鲜为人知。在这里，我们聚焦于内分泌控制的蜕皮行为，节肢动物在每次蜕皮结束时都会利用这种行为蜕去外皮。蜕皮由蜕皮触发激素（ETH）引发，我们发现，产生甲壳类心脏活性肽（CCAP）的肽能神经元的反应，这些神经元是ETH的关键靶点并控制蜕皮行为的开始，其根本上取决于ETH其他直接靶点产生并在中枢神经系统内以广泛旁分泌方式释放的神经肽的作用；取决于CCAP神经元自身的自分泌影响；以及取决于由γ-氨基丁酸（GABA）介导的抑制作用。我们的研究结果为这种关键昆虫行为是如何被控制提供了见解，也为理解神经肽如何组织神经元活动和行为提供了一般原则。
