Home
Deutsch
Advanced Search
Browse by ...
Publication overview
Contact persons
Help
Publ. Version/Full Text Volltext
DOI
PMC
 |
Open Access Gold |
|
as soon as is submitted to ZB.
Innexin gap junctions in nerve cells coordinate spontaneous contractile behavior in Hydra polyps.
Sci. Rep. 4:3573 (2014)
Nerve cells and spontaneous coordinated behavior first appeared near the base of animal evolution in the common ancestor of cnidarians and bilaterians. Experiments on the cnidarian Hydra have demonstrated that nerve cells are essential for this behavior, although nerve cells in Hydra are organized in a diffuse network and do not form ganglia. Here we show that the gap junction protein innexin-2 is expressed in a small group of nerve cells in the lower body column of Hydra and that an anti-innexin-2 antibody binds to gap junctions in the same region. Treatment of live animals with innexin-2 antibody eliminates gap junction staining and reduces spontaneous body column contractions. We conclude that a small subset of nerve cells, connected by gap junctions and capable of synchronous firing, act as a pacemaker to coordinate the contraction of the body column in the absence of ganglia.
Altmetric
Additional Metrics?
Edit extra informations
Login
Publication type
Article: Journal article
Document type
Scientific Article
Keywords
Electrical Synapses; Evolution; Genome; Organization; Proteins; System; Gene
ISSN (print) / ISBN
2045-2322
e-ISSN
2045-2322
Journal
Scientific Reports
Quellenangaben
Volume: 4,
Article Number: 3573
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Publishing Place
London
Non-patent literature
Publications
Reviewing status
Peer reviewed