Innexin gap junctions in nerve cells coordinate spontaneous contractile behavior in Hydra polyps
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Spontaneous body column contractions in Hydra are a coordinated behavior based on a subpopulation of nerve cells.
“Spontaneous body column contractions in Hydra is another coordinated behavior, which is based on a subpopulation of nerve cells [44,82,83].”
From Back to the Basics: Cnidarians Start to Fire (2017) · cites this paper as [44]
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References 33 · Cited by 59
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Spencer A. N. in Evolution of the first nervous systems (ed Anderson P. A. V.) 33– 53 (Plenum Press, 1990).
- Authors
- Takaku, Y., Hwang, J. S., Wolf, A., Böttger, A., Shimizu, H., David, C. N., & Gojobori, T.
- Affiliations
- Hamamatsu University (JP)
- National Institute of Genetics (JP)
- Helmholtz Munich (DE)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (SA)
- Corresponding author
- Gojobori, Takashi
- ORCID
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2014-01-07
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 3573-3573
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3882753
- OpenAlex
- W1995908762
- Cited by
- 59
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 6
- FWCI
- 3.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2014-02-12)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion)
- Site cant be reached (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Repository (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Connexins and lens biology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Ion channel regulation and function
- Keywords
- gap junctions, Hydra, neurons, cardiac pacemaker, synchronous firing, cnidarian evolution
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Hydra, Neurons, Synapses, Gap Junctions, Connexins
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