RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A Multicellular Network Mechanism for Temperature-Robust Food Sensing
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 815373
DO 10.1101/815373
A1 Dhaval S. Patel
A1 Giovanni Diana
A1 Eugeni V. Entchev
A1 Mei Zhan
A1 Hang Lu
A1 QueeLim Ch’ng
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/10/22/815373.abstract
AB Responsiveness to external cues is a hallmark of biological systems. In complex environments, organisms must remain responsive to specific inputs even as other internal or external factors fluctuate. Here we show how Caenorhabditis elegans can discriminate between food levels to modulate lifespan despite temperature perturbations. While robustness of fixed outputs has been described, our findings uncover a more complex robustness process that maintains food-responsiveness. This end-to-end robustness from environment to physiology is mediated by food-sensing neurons that communicate via TGF-β and serotonin signals to form a multicellular gene network. Mechanistically, specific regulations in this network change with temperature to maintain similar food-responsiveness in the lifespan output. Together, our findings provide a basis for gene-environment interactions and unveil computations that integrate environmental cues to govern physiology.