ric-7 promotes neuropeptide secretionric-7促进神经肽分泌.pdfVIP

RIC-7 Promotes Neuropeptide Secretion 1,2 1,2 3 1,2 Yingsong Hao , Zhitao Hu , Derek Sieburth , Joshua M. Kaplan * 1 Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 2 Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 3 Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America Abstract Secretion of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides is mediated by exocytosis of distinct secretory organelles, synaptic vesicles (SVs) and dense core vesicles (DCVs) respectively. Relatively little is known about factors that differentially regulate SV and DCV secretion. Here we identify a novel protein RIC-7 that is required for neuropeptide secretion in Caenorhabditis elegans. The RIC-7 protein is expressed in all neurons and is localized to presynaptic terminals. Imaging, electrophysiology, and behavioral analysis of ric-7 mutants indicates that acetylcholine release occurs normally, while neuropeptide release is significantly decreased. These results suggest that RIC-7 promotes DCV–mediated secretion. Citation: Hao Y, Hu Z, Sieburth D, Kaplan JM (2012) RIC-7 Promotes Neuropeptide Secretion. PLoS Genet 8(1): e1002464. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002464 Editor: Andrew D. Chisholm, University of California San Diego, United States of America Received July 8, 2011; Accepted November 18, 2011; Published January 19, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Hao et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credite