Nicotine induces abnormal motor coupling through sensitization of a mechanosensory circuit in Caenorhabditis elegans

Yuting Liu, Leiru Huang, Ruipeng Wang, Fukang Qi, Yiwen Liu, Qingyuan Chen, Morgane Mialon, Lili Chen, Berangere Pinan-Lucarre and Shangbang Gao

PLOS Biology, 2025, vol. 23, issue 10, 1-27

Abstract: Nicotine exposure elicits diverse behavioral changes, yet the underlying neural pathways and molecular mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Here, we demonstrate that chronic nicotine exposure markedly increases both the initiation and duration of reversals in Caenorhabditis elegans. Strikingly, these reversals were tightly coupled with the rhythmic body contractions of the defecation motor program (DMP). Through pharmacological, genetic, in situ electrophysiological, and calcium imaging analyses, we show that nicotine enhances the activity of the AVA interneuron via selective upregulation of ACR-16, a nicotinic ACh receptor critical for nicotine-induced motor coupling. Ablation of touch receptor neurons (TRNs) or inhibition of TRNs-mediated mechanosensation completely abolished this coupling. Furthermore, optogenetic activation of TRNs in nicotine-treated animals evoked stronger AVA depolarization, and nicotine amplified gentle touch-evoked reversals. Together, these findings reveal a potential interoceptive effect of nicotine mediated by sensitization of the TRNs-AVA mechanosensory pathway, providing new insight into the neural and molecular basis of nicotine’s modulation of sensory-motor coupling.Nicotine exposure elicits diverse behavioral changes, yet the underlying neural pathways and molecular mechanisms remain incompletely understood. This study shows that in C. elegans, chronic nicotine exposure couples reversal behaviors to rhythmic body contractions by modulating the sensitivity of a mechanosensory-motor circuit.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003423 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/file ... 03423&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:3003423

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3003423

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Biology from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosbiology ().