Oxytocin promotes heat stress tolerance via insulin signals in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Oxytocin promotes heat stress tolerance via insulin signals in Caenorhabditis elegans. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2019 Jun 14;:1-9 Authors: Yasuda K, Sakamoto K Abstract Oxytocin, has various physiological functions that have been well studied and many that remain unknown. Here, we aimed to determine new physiological functions of oxytocin using Caenorhabditis elegans. Oxytocin treatment promoted the restoration of movement after heat stress and enhanced the viability under heat stress. However, oxytocin had no effect on the life span and only little effect on the oxidative stress tolerance. In contrast, oxytocin treatment didn't promote the restoration of movement or enhance the viability of deficient mutants of ntr-1/2, which is the gene encoding the oxytocin receptor. In addition, for mutants of daf-16, daf-2, tax-4, and some insulin-like peptides, the heat stress tolerance effect by oxytocin was canceled. Furthermore, oxytocin increased the expression levels of the DAF-16 target genes. Our results suggest that oxytocin treatment promoted the heat stress tolerance of C. elegans via the insulin/IGF-1 signaling pathway. PMID: 31198094 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry - Category: Biochemistry Authors: Tags: Biosci Biotechnol Biochem Source Type: research