PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Christopher D. Chute
AU  - Elizabeth M. DiLoreto
AU  - Ying K. Zhang
AU  - Diego Rayes
AU  - Veronica L. Coyle
AU  - Hee June Choi
AU  - Mark J. Alkema
AU  - Frank C. Schroeder
AU  - Jagan Srinivasan
TI  - Co-option of neurotransmitter signaling for inter-organismal communication in <em>C. elegans</em>
AID  - 10.1101/275693
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 275693
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/18/275693.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/18/275693.full
AB  - Biogenic amine neurotransmitters play a central role in metazoan biology, and both their chemical structures and cognate receptors are evolutionarily conserved. Their primary roles are in intra-organismal signaling, whereas biogenic amines are not normally recruited for communication between separate individuals. Here, we show that in C. elegans, a neurotransmitter-sensing G protein-coupled receptor, TYRA-2, is required for avoidance responses to osas#9, an ascaroside pheromone that incorporates the neurotransmitter octopamine. Neuronal ablation, cell-specific genetic rescue, and calcium imaging show that tyra-2 expression in the nociceptive neuron ASH is necessary and sufficient to induce osas#9 avoidance. Ectopic expression in the AWA neuron, which is generally associated with attractive responses, reverses the response to osas#9, resulting in attraction instead of avoidance behavior, confirming that TYRA-2 partakes in sensing osas#9. The TYRA-2/osas#9 signaling system thus represents an inter-organismal communication channel that evolved via co-option of a neurotransmitter and its cognate receptor.