Page 66 - Q. Neuroscience

[Q. Neuroscience-39]

Mechanosensitive Piezo Channel, PEZO-1, regulates intestinal

motility in C. elegans

Yeon-Ji Park¹, Jihye Yeon¹, Kyuhyung Kim¹

¹Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, DGIST, Daegu 42988, South Korea

Mammalian two PIEZO genes, Piezo1 and Piezo2, of which functions have been shown to be involved in
mechanosenation (Coste et al., 2010). C. elegans genome has a single PIEZO gene, pezo-1, which encode 14
isoforms and of which function has not been explored yet. The pezo-1 long isoform is expressed in the pharyngeal-

intestinal valve cells, which appears to mediate the movement of food from the pharynx into the intestine (Avery

et al.,1997). To identify roles of PEZO-1 in valve cells-mediated food movement, we fed animals with GFP-
microsphere and found that pezo-1 mutant animals show excess accumulation of GFP in the intestine lumen. Defects
in pezo-1mutants are restored by expression of long isoform PEZO-1. In addition, ectopic expression of mouse

PIEZO1 is sufficient to restore defects of pezo-1 mutants. Two gap junction genes, inx-2 and inx-20, have been
shown to connect the valve cells to the pharyngeal muscles. We found that inx-2 and inx-20 mutants also show

defects in the food movement. Currently, we are identifying the molecular mechanisms by which pezo-1 and gap
junction channels modulate valve cell-mediated food movement. Furthermore, we are investigating whether PEZO-

1 is activated upon by pressure by performing electrophysiology in a heterologous system.