{"doi":"10.1101/2021.06.23.449647","title":"The neural basis of temperature-driven host seeking in the human threadworm <i>Strongyloides stercoralis</i>","abstract":"Abstract Soil-transmitted parasitic nematodes infect approximately one billion people and are a major cause of morbidity worldwide 1–8 . The infective larvae (iL3s) of these parasites actively search for hosts in a poorly understood, sensory-driven process that requires thermal cues 9,10 . Here, we describe the neural basis of temperature-driven host seeking in parasitic nematodes using the human threadworm Strongyloides stercoralis . We show that S. stercoralis thermosensation is mediated by the AFD neurons, a thermosensory neuron class that is conserved between parasitic and free-living nematodes 11 . We demonstrate that S. stercoralis AFD displays parasite-specific adaptations that enable both nonlinear and linear encoding of temperatures up to human body temperature. Furthermore, we describe a novel thermosensory behavior in which S. stercoralis iL3s generate spontaneous reversals of temperature preference at below-body temperatures. Finally, we identify three thermoreceptors selectively expressed in S. stercoralis AFD that display parasite-specific sensitivities to human body temperatures and likely enable temperature-driven host seeking by iL3s. Our results are the first direct evidence that the sensory neurons of soil-transmitted parasitic nematodes exhibit parasite-specific neural adaptations and sensory coding strategies that allow them to target human hosts, a finding with important implications for efforts to develop new therapeutic strategies for nematode control.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":225590,"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":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9539,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":828010,"name":"Felicitas Ruiz","orcid":"0000-0003-2175-0356","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":828011,"name":"Joon Ha Lee","orcid":"0000-0002-7254-829X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":321376,"name":"Elissa A. Hallem","orcid":"0000-0003-0260-3174","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":730045,"name":"Astra S. Bryant","orcid":"0000-0002-0887-2044","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":62,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:54:26.581453Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}