Page 48 - Q. Neuroscience

[Q. Neuroscience-29]

Small RNAs regulate pheromone-mediated avoidance

behavior in C. elegans

Hyeonjeong Hwang¹, Kyuhyung Kim¹

¹1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, DGIST, Daegu 42988, Republic of Korea

Small RNAs are short, non-coding RNAs that can regulate gene expression. Recent studies suggested that small
RNAs pathway can modulate animal behavior. However, the mechanisms of how small RNAs regulate animal
behavior are not fully understood. C. elegans secretes a complex pheromone mixture called ascarosides that indicate

environmental conditions including population density and influence many aspects of behavior in C. elegans. For

example, a pheromone component, ascr#3 (asc-ΔC9, C9) elicits avoidance behavior in wild-type hermaphrodites.
Here, we investigated roles of small RNAs in ascr#3-mediated avoidance behavior. We screened candidate mutants
including rrf-3, ergo-1, and two alleles of eri-1, of which gene products are known to regulate small RNA pathway.

We found that eri-1 mutants exhibit defects in ascr#3 avoidance. We then examined expression patterns of eri-1
by generating transgenic animals expressing GFP reporter transgenes under the control of its own promoter and

found that eri-1 is specifically expressed in a subset of head neurons. Then we expressed eri-1cDNA under its own
promoter and are currently examining the behavioral phenotype of these transgenic animals. These results

demonstrate that pheromone-mediated avoidance behavior is regulated by neuronal ERI-1.