C. elegans aversive conditioning to propanol: the expression profiling and effects of fos-1 and jun-1 on associative learning

• Grant number: 23/13492-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Program to Stimulate Scientific Vocations
• Start date: January 08, 2024
• End date: February 27, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology - Physiology of Organs and Systems
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Eugenio Araujo de Moraes Mello
• Grantee: Leandro Faria Melo
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The c-fos and c-jun genes are critical for survival, since they initiate cellular responses to environmental novelties and are involved in neuronal plasticity, cell growth, and mitosis. The biological mechanisms that coordinated the evolutionary process of animals are still not quite understood, even more so at the biochemical and molecular perspective involving the specification of the nervous system at the cellular level. To that end, the comparative analysis between species combined with the use of molecular techniques is a powerful means to study these neural evolutionary mechanisms. Previous research by our group compared the rats and marmosets' expressions of c-fos and c-jun and revealed that the complexity of the nervous system is inversely related to the intensity and duration of c-fos and c-jun expression. C. elegans, as it belongs to the Nematoda phylum, is an interesting experimental species for further investigation of this relationship, once nematodes are an important cut-off point on the evolutionary scale to the rise up of many neural features. Therefore, this project aims to inquire the impacts of the immediate early genes fos-1 and jun-1 on the C. elegans associative learning process. An aversive conditioning model will be employed to induce learning in the animals, and a chemotaxis assay to evaluate it. Through the techniques of RT-qPCR, gene silencing by RNAi and fluorescence microscopy, the expression and effects of fos-1 and jun-1 will be examined. The characterization of function of these genes in C. elegans may provide new insights about the evolution of the nervous system, seeing that publications in the field of phylogeny are mostly made in mammals. (AU)