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A Small Conductance Calcium-Activated K<sup>+</sup> Channel in C. elegans, KCNL-2, Plays a Role in the Regulation of the Rate of Egg-Laying

Chotoo, CK and Silverman, GA and Devor, DC and Luke, CJ (2013) A Small Conductance Calcium-Activated K<sup>+</sup> Channel in C. elegans, KCNL-2, Plays a Role in the Regulation of the Rate of Egg-Laying. PLoS ONE, 8 (9).

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Abstract

In the nervous system of mice, small conductance calcium-activated potassium (SK) channels function to regulate neuronal excitability through the generation of a component of the medium afterhyperpolarization that follows action potentials. In humans, irregular action potential firing frequency underlies diseases such as ataxia, epilepsy, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. Due to the complexity of studying protein function in the mammalian nervous system, we sought to characterize an SK channel homologue, KCNL-2, in C. elegans, a genetically tractable system in which the lineage of individual neurons was mapped from their early developmental stages. Sequence analysis of the KCNL-2 protein reveals that the six transmembrane domains, the potassium-selective pore and the calmodulin binding domain are highly conserved with the mammalian homologues. We used widefield and confocal fluorescent imaging to show that a fusion construct of KCNL-2 with GFP in transgenic lines is expressed in the nervous system of C. elegans. We also show that a KCNL-2 null strain, kcnl-2(tm1885), demonstrates a mild egg-laying defective phenotype, a phenotype that is rescued in a KCNL-2-dependent manner. Conversely, we show that transgenic lines that overexpress KCNL-2 demonstrate a hyperactive egg-laying phenotype. In this study, we show that the vulva of transgenic hermaphrodites is highly innervated by neuronal processes and by the VC4 and VC5 neurons that express GFP-tagged KCNL-2. We propose that KCNL-2 functions in the nervous system of C. elegans to regulate the rate of egg-laying. © 2013 Chotoo et al.


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Details

Item Type: Article
Status: Published
Creators/Authors:
CreatorsEmailPitt UsernameORCID
Chotoo, CK
Silverman, GAgas12@pitt.eduGAS12
Devor, DCdd2@pitt.eduDD2
Luke, CJcjl16@pitt.eduCJL16
Date: 10 September 2013
Date Type: Publication
Journal or Publication Title: PLoS ONE
Volume: 8
Number: 9
DOI or Unique Handle: 10.1371/journal.pone.0075869
Schools and Programs: School of Medicine > Cell Biology
School of Medicine > Pediatrics
Refereed: Yes
Date Deposited: 11 Oct 2013 20:39
Last Modified: 27 Jan 2019 03:55
URI: http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19825

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