Chronic nicotine exposure augments gustatory plasticity in Caenorhabditis elegans: involvement of dopamine signaling.

Abstract

The chemotaxis of wild-type NaCl-conditioned nematodes exposed to 100 mM NaCl, maintained on a growth medium containing 0.3 mM nicotine from first larva to young adult (YA) hermaphrodite, was significantly weaker than the chemotaxis of those maintained on a medium without nicotine. The result indicates that chronic nicotine exposure augments gustatory plasticity. The gustatory plasticity was also augmented when tph-1 mutants, with a defect in serotonin biosynthesis, were maintained on a medium containing nicotine until the YA stage. Chronic nicotine exposure did not augment gustatory plasticity in bas-1 mutants, which had defects in both serotonin and dopamine biosynthesis, and in cat-2 mutants, which had a defect in dopamine biosynthesis. However, augmentation of gustatory plasticity was observed when bas-1 and cat-2 mutants were maintained on a growth medium containing nicotine along with dopamine, suggesting that dopamine signaling is involved in the augmentation of gustatory plasticity due to chronic nicotine exposure.