
==== Front
bioRxiv
BIORXIV
bioRxiv
2692-8205
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

10.1101/2024.08.31.610597
preprint
1
Article
Evolution of lateralized gustation in nematodes
Mackie Marisa
Le Vivian Vy
Carstensen Heather R.
Kushnir Nicole R.
Castro Dylan L.
Dimov Ivan M.
Quach Kathleen T.
Cook Steven J.
Hobert Oliver http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7634-2854

Chalasani Sreekanth H.
Hong Ray L. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1870-8659

02 9 2024
2024.08.31.610597https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
http://biorxiv.org/lookup/doi/10.1101/2024.08.31.610597
nihpp-2024.08.31.610597.pdf
Abstract

Animals with small nervous systems have a limited number of sensory neurons that must encode information from a changing environment. This problem is particularly exacerbated in nematodes that populate a wide variety of distinct ecological niches but only have a few sensory neurons available to encode multiple modalities. How does sensory diversity prevail within this neuronal constraint? To identify the genetic basis for patterning different nervous systems, we demonstrate that sensory neurons in the Pristionchus pacificus respond to various salt sensory cues in a manner that is partially distinct from that of the distantly related nematode C. elegans . By visualizing neuronal activity patterns, we show that contrary to previous expectations based on its genome sequence, the salt responses of P. pacificus are encoded in a left/right asymmetric manner in the bilateral ASE neuron pair. Our study illustrates patterns of evolutionary stability and change in the gustatory system of nematodes.
==== Body
pmc
