In collaboration with Alison Cole and Ulrich Technau we also mapped the peptidergic of , by linking peptide-expressing to receptor-expressing cells.
In , tissues are extensively connected via signalling.

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The 31 new deorphanized from and the trees also allowed us to predict the ligand for many receptors across . We hope that cnidarian researchers will functionally characterising these e.g. by , as the Houliston lab has done for the MIH receptor.
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/

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Previously, only one with a ligand was known in , the receptor for the Maturation-Inducing-Hormone. This receptor was found by Gonzalo Quiroga Artigas and Philipp Bauknecht in our lab, in a collaboration with Evelyn Houliston.
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/

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By phylogenetic reconstruction, Daniel Thiel and Luis Yanez could show that receptors diversified independent from in bilateria. This parallel and expansion confirms that cnidarians do not represent the ancestral state in neuronal signalling (as implied by terms like 'pre-bilaterian') any more than bilaterians.

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To get a comprehensive list of , we combined screening and mass spectrometry in collaboration with Amanda Kieswetter and Liesbet Temmerman at KU Leuven. We found 15 new proneuropeptides and confirmed the endogenous processing (cleavage, amidation etc) of many of them. has at least 33 neuropeptide precursors.

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In our new preprint we characterise neuropeptide signalling in the cnidarian .
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20
Daniel Thiel and Luis Yanez-Guerra screened 64 neuropeptides against 161 G-protein coupled receptors () and found activating peptide ligands for 31 receptors.

The connectome of the adult female fly brain, Drosophila melanogaster:

“Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain” by Dorkenwald et al. 2023 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

A project that started with Davi Bock and Wei Lee developing the TEMCA for the mouse visual cortex in Clay Reid’s lab (Bock et al. 2011 nature.com/articles/nature0980), then Bock moving to #HHMIJanelia and developing the instrument much further to deliver the #FAFB volume (Zheng et al. 2018 sciencedirect.com/science/arti ), and then the Seung, Murthy and Jefferis labs automatically re-registering, segmenting and annotating the whole volume via #FlyWire and more.

Extraordinary!

#Drosophila #connectomics #neuroscience #brain

A warm welcome to all the new people at Mastodon :mastodon:.

There are many ways to find people to follow on here, just two examples:

fedifinder.glitch.me/
followgraph.vercel.app

There are also lists and other resources. Once properly set up, you'll feel rigth at home here!

Interested in building genetic tools to study development and regeneration? We're looking for research engineer to spearhead the development of transgenic tools in the emerging crustacean model Parhyale

#mol_genetics #transgenesis #CRISPR

averof-lab.org/pages/3560

"Phylogenetic tracing of midbrain-specific regulatory sequences suggests single origin of eubilaterian brains", by Schuster and Hirth, 2023 science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv

A genetic signature of bilateral animals with brains, including "a genetic boundary separating the rostral from caudal nervous systems, demonstrated for the metameric brains of annelids, arthropods, and chordates and the asegmental cycloneuralian and urochordate brain"

In other words, the genetic toolkit of the ancestor of both protostomes (arthropods, nematodes, molluscs and annelids) and deuterostomes (echinoderms and vertebrates) – the eubilaterian.

science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv

#neuroscience #DevBiol #EvoDevo #NeuroEvo #evolution

Could this be the paradigm shift all of #OpenScience has been waiting for?

Council of the EU adopts new principles:
"interoperable, not-for-profit infrastructures for publishing
based on open source software and open standards"
data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/d

and now ten major research organizations support the proposal:
coalition-s.org/wp-content/upl

What they propose is nearly identical to our proposal:
doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5526634

Does this now get the ball rolling, or is it just words on paper?

Wow, now that's some fascienating #neuroscience: "the unique insect-specific oskar gene plays a role in long-term memory through expression in adult neural stem cells. We show that oskar is expressed and required in stem cells of the adult cricket brain for long-term memory. Further, we provide evidence that oskar’s role in long-term memory involves regulation by the transcription factor Creb"

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2218

Hi Mastodon folks. Twitter is getting quieter so I've clearly lost my previous @scotttishwaddell twitterverse. I'll start posting occasional lab news here too (instead) so please follow if that's of interest. We've lots in the pipeline and I'm missing learning about the other cool science out there that used to flash by my eyes on Twitter. Cheers, Scott. #Introduction #neuroscience #drosophila #dopamine

It's actually happening! As part of the EMBL's TREC expedition, the collection of samples along the first land-sea transects around Roscoff, France, have started.

#EMBLtrec #microbiome #pollution #environment

GCaMP8 is out!

"Fast and sensitive GCaMP calcium indicators for imaging neural populations", by Y. Zhang, M. Rózsa, et al. 2023. nature.com/articles/s41586-023

"‘jGCaMP8’ sensors, based on the calcium-binding protein calmodulin and a fragment of endothelial nitric oxide synthase, have ultra-fast kinetics (half-rise times of 2 ms) and the highest sensitivity for neural activity reported for a protein-based calcium sensor."

Tested in both larva and adult #Drosophila, and in mouse.

#neuroscience #GCaMP

Today the peer-reviewed version of our preprint is out:

"The #connectome of an insect brain"
science.org/doi/10.1126/scienc

Congrats to co-first authors Michael Winding and Benjamin Pedigo, and to all our lab members and collaborators who made this work possible over the years. A journey that started over 10 years ago–and yet this is but a new beginning. So much more to come.

See my #tootprint on the preprint from back in the Autumn: mathstodon.xyz/@albertcardona/

The data is available both as supplements and directly via #CATMAID thanks to hosting by the #VirtualFlyBrain:
l1em.catmaid.virtualflybrain.o)

(The "Winding, Pedigo et al. 2023" annotation listing all included neurons will appear very soon in an upcoming update.)

#neuroscience #connectomics #Drosophila #DrosophilaLarva

For afficionados:
Interesting new paper from James Checco's lab on two / receptors, one activated by a D-peptide the other one by an L-peptide.
Conversion of an L-stereoisomer to a D-stereoisomer is a big mystery in peptide biology - but it matters for rec specificity and lifetime.
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2217

The new tool MorphoFeatures allows researchers to automatically assign cell types and tissues in electron microscopy images, a step which is critical for understanding complex organisms. elifesciences.org/articles/861

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