Novel neurodevelopmental genes in C. elegans
Novel neurodevelopmental genes in C. elegans
Victoria Cerdeira, Myriam Ares, Lise Rivollet, and Claire Bénard
Dept. Biological Sciences, CERMO-FC Research Center, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Ongoing research with C. elegans continues to uncover fundamental principles of nervous system development and function. Neuron migration, axon guidance and dendritic spine development are essential to establish functional neural circuits. Our goal here is to study cellular and molecular mechanisms that mediate neuronal development, including that of dendritic spines. For this, we are characterizing several genes named mau (maternal-effect uncoordinated), which are defined by mutations isolated in a screen for maternal-effect viable mutations (Hekimi et al., 1995; our unpublished results). maumutant animals display morphological and behavioural defects that vary in penetrance and expressivity. Our phenotypic analyses of mau mutants reveal that their locomotion is abnormal and variable over time, with episodes of paralysis, spasms and altered body postures. mau mutants have defective axon guidance, including left/right guidance choice at the ventral midline. Moreover, mau mutants display defects in dendritic spines number and distribution, as well as in synaptic transmission. Altered synaptic connectivity and plasticity, including at dendritic spines, are linked to early-onset schizophrenia, which is a very rare disease (prevalence <0,3%); (Moyer et al., 2015).We are progressing towards molecularly identifying and characterizing the mau mutants, which will provide insights on how these novel genes contribute to neuronal development, including of dendritic spines in vivo.
Given the high evolutionary conservation of neuronal development and function between C. elegans and humans, elucidating dendritic spines formation and plasticity is expected to provide key insights for the development of strategies to diagnose and treat rare neurological conditions such as early-onset schizophrenia.
Personnes inscrites
-
Raphaël DIMA
UQAM -
Mma narjara gonzalez
PhD student, UQAM -
Laurent Cappadocia
UQAM -
M. Philippe St-louis
étudiant de maîtrise, UQAM -
Victoria Cerdeira
Ph.D. Student, UQAM -
Marie Biard
Étudiante à la maîtrise, UQAM/Université de Montréal -
Pier-Olivier Martel
UQTR -
Razieh Bitazar
Autre -
Vanessa Pereira
INRS -
Baptiste Charrier
UQAM -
Justine Rousseau
Université de Montréal -
Mr kiran todkar
UQTR -
François Dragon
UQAM -
Nicolas Pouderous
UQAM -
Marc Lussier
UQAM -
Benoît Vanderperre
Professeur adjoint, UQAM -
Malika Oubaha
UQAM -
Lise Rivollet
UQAM -
Philippe Campeau
Université de Montréal -
Gauthier Alfonsi
Étudiant MSc, INRS -
Malika Nadour
UQAM