In our new preprint we characterise neuropeptide signalling in the cnidarian #Nematostella.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.03.547448v1
Daniel Thiel and Luis Yanez-Guerra screened 64 neuropeptides against 161 G-protein coupled receptors (#GPCR) and found activating peptide ligands for 31 receptors.
#cnidaria #neuropeptide #evolution #neuroscience
By phylogenetic reconstruction, Daniel Thiel and Luis Yanez could show that #cnidarian #neuropeptide receptors diversified independent from #GPCRs in bilateria. This parallel #evolution 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.
#receptor #evolution #neuroscience #phylogeny
Previously, only one #GPCR with a ligand was known in #cnidaria, the receptor for the #Clytia Maturation-Inducing-Hormone. This receptor was found by Gonzalo Quiroga Artigas and Philipp Bauknecht in our lab, in a collaboration with Evelyn Houliston.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000614
#cnidaria #neuropeptide #evolution #neuroscience
The 31 new deorphanized #neuropeptide #GPCRs from #Nematostella and the #phylogenetic trees also allowed us to predict the ligand for many receptors across #cnidarians. We hope that cnidarian researchers will functionally characterising these e.g. by #CRISPR, as the Houliston lab has done for the MIH receptor.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000614
#evolution #neuroscience
In collaboration with Alison Cole and Ulrich Technau we also mapped the peptidergic #connectome of #Nematostella, by linking peptide-expressing to receptor-expressing cells.
In #Cnidaria, tissues are extensively connected via #neuropeptide signalling.
#neuroscience
The version of record of our #Nematostella #GPCR #neuropeptide paper has now been published
https://elifesciences.org/articles/90674#content
For #cnidarian #neuroscience there are lots of new deorphanised receptors described in the paper. We also identified orthologs across cnidarian species, including corals, #Exaiptasia etc. so the resource is not limited to Nematostella.
To get a comprehensive list of #neuropeptides, we combined #bioinformatic 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. #Nematostella has at least 33 neuropeptide precursors.
#cnidaria #neuroscience