A worm, a clarinet, and synaptic machinery
The cells of the brain and the nervous system communicate through chemical signals, messages sent from one neuron to another across a gap called the synapse. These transmissions require a complex group of proteins working together at the sender cell’s “active zone” to package the signals into vesicle compartments and release them at just the right time.
Scientists have studied this machinery in model organisms such as mice and fruit flies, identifying the genes and proteins critical for neurotransmission. The UIC laboratory of Janet Richmond, professor of biological sciences, looks at C. elegans, a small worm often used in genetics and neurobiology research. A new paper from her group in Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences examines the important role of a protein called clarinet in the nervous system of these worms.
In 2017, Richmond was part of the team that discovered clarinet – so named because of its resemblance to proteins called bassoon and piccolo in mice and fife in fruit flies. Deleting the gene for clarinet disrupts synaptic transmission in worms, and the new PNAS paper pinpoints why: its activation orchestrates the assembly of necessary proteins in the active zone to prepare for neurotransmitter release.
The finding illustrates the biological similarities of neurotransmission across very different organisms and will help future researchers better use C. elegans as a model for studying the function and dysfunction of the nervous system.