Abstract
Tasting the Bitter Sunlight
Highlights
Have you ever had that gut reaction to your surroundings, some physical sensation that something isn’t quite right? Maybe a squirmy, uneasy feeling in your stomach or an acrid taste on your tongue that makes you want to leave the scene? When the nematode C. elegans encounters an offensive sensation—whether a pungent, potentially dangerous odor, extreme temperature, or the poking probe of a researcher—it wastes no time in making a hasty retreat
After identifying and characterizing this new behavior, Edwards et al used classic forward genetics to identify mutants that are unresponsive to UV light
The mutations mapped to a gene that encodes a protein unrelated to any of the known phototransduction systems in nature. The authors named this new protein LITE-1 and showed that it functions as a UV light receptor
Summary
Have you ever had that gut reaction to your surroundings, some physical sensation that something isn’t quite right? Maybe a squirmy, uneasy feeling in your stomach or an acrid taste on your tongue that makes you want to leave the scene? When the nematode C. elegans encounters an offensive sensation—whether a pungent, potentially dangerous odor (such as those associated with fungal parasites), extreme temperature, or the poking probe of a researcher—it wastes no time in making a hasty retreat. Colleagues expand the level of our understanding by describing a striking new behavior and mechanism of sensory detection for these microscopic animals. They demonstrate that short-wavelength light, such as blue-violet and ultraviolet (UV), is a potent avoidance cue, stimulating a robust acceleration of locomotion when the tail or body is illuminated, while head illumination drives reversal locomotion.
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