{"doi":"10.1093/genetics/iyaf155","title":"Harnessing microbial tools: <i>Escherichia coli</i> as a vehicle for neuropeptide functional analysis in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>","abstract":"Animals respond to changes in their environment and internal states via neuromodulation. Neuropeptides modulate neural circuits with flexibility because 1 gene can produce either multiple copies of the same neuropeptide or different neuropeptides. However, with this architectural complexity, the function of discrete and active neuropeptides is muddled. Here, we design a genetic tool that facilitates functional analysis of individual peptides. We engineered Escherichia coli bacteria to express active peptides, fed loss-of-function Caenorhabditis elegans, and rescued the activity of genes with varying lengths and functions: pdf-1, flp-3, ins-6, and ins-22. Some peptides were functionally redundant, while others exhibit unique and previously uncharacterized functions. We postulate our rescue-by-feeding approach can elucidate the functional landscape of neuropeptides, identifying the circuits and complex peptidergic pathways that regulate different behavioral and physiological processes.","journal":"Genetics","year":2025,"id":536505,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9565,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1421829,"name":"Shruti Shastry","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1303212,"name":"Emily J Leptich","orcid":"0000-0001-8272-8940","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":565891,"name":"Douglas K. Reilly","orcid":"0000-0001-8260-8690","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1006762,"name":"Rachel N. Arey","orcid":"0000-0001-9941-3945","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":565894,"name":"Jagan Srinivasan","orcid":"0000-0001-5449-7938","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":819093,"name":"Elizabeth M. DiLoreto","orcid":"0000-0001-9366-4110","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":90,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:52:05.227140Z","pmid":"40794761","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}