Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 11, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13795-x
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Funding
- NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs [P40 OD010440]
- International C. elegans Gene Knockout Consortium
- NHMRC [1145896]
- NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship [1111042]
- NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellowship [1108489]
- National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia [1145896, 1108489, 1111042] Funding Source: NHMRC
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Neurons are subjected to strain due to body movement and their location within organs and tissues. However, how they withstand these forces over the lifetime of an organism is still poorly understood. Here, focusing on touch receptor neuron-epidermis interactions using Caenorhabditis elegans as a model system, we show that UNC-70/beta-spectrin and TBC-10, a conserved GTPase-activating protein, function non-cell-autonomously within the epidermis to dynamically maintain attachment of the axon. We reveal that, in response to strain, UNC-70/beta-spectrin and TBC-10 stabilize trans-epidermal hemidesmosome attachment structures which otherwise become lost, causing axonal breakage and degeneration. Furthermore, we show that TBC-10 regulates axonal attachment and maintenance by inactivating RAB-35, and reveal functional conservation of these molecules with their vertebrate orthologs. Finally, we demonstrate that beta-spectrin functions in this context non-cell-autonomously. We propose a model in which mechanically resistant epidermal attachment structures are maintained by UNC-70/beta-spectrin and TBC-10 during movement, preventing axonal detachment and degeneration.
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