Journal
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 11, Issue 8, Pages 916-922Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/nn.2155
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Phototaxis behavior is commonly observed in animals with light-sensing organs. C. elegans, however, is generally believed to lack phototaxis, as this animal lives in darkness ( soil) and does not possess eyes. Here, we found that light stimuli elicited negative phototaxis in C. elegans and that this behavior is important for survival. We identified a group of ciliary sensory neurons as candidate photoreceptor cells for mediating phototaxis. Furthermore, we found that light excited photoreceptor cells by evoking a depolarizing conductance carried by cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)-sensitive cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) channels, revealing a conservation in phototransduction between worms and vertebrates. These results identify a new sensory modality in C. elegans and suggest that animals living in dark environments without light-sensing organs may not be presumed to be light insensitive. We propose that urbilaterians, the last common ancestor of bilaterians, might have already evolved a visual system that employs CNG channels and the second messenger cGMP for phototransduction.
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