{"doi":"10.1101/2021.12.08.471862","title":"Escape Steering by Cholecystokinin Peptidergic Signaling","abstract":"Abstract Escape is an evolutionarily conserved and essential avoidance response. Considered to be innate, most studies on escape responses focused on hard-wired circuits. We report here that peptidergic signaling is an integral and necessary component of the Caenorhabditis elegans escape circuit. Combining genetic screening, electrophysiology and calcium imaging, we reveal that a neuropeptide NLP-18 and its cholecystokinin receptor CKR-1 enable the escape circuit to execute a full omega (Ω) turn, the last motor step where the animal robustly steers away from its original trajectory. We demonstrate in vivo and in vitro that CKR-1 is a Gα q protein coupled receptor for NLP-18. in vivo , NLP-18 is mainly secreted by the gustatory sensory neuron (ASI) to activate CKR-1 in the head motor neuron (SMD) and the turn-initiating interneuron (AIB). Removal of NLP-18, removal of CKR-1, or specific knockdown of CKR-1 in SMD or AIB neurons lead to shallower turns hence less robust escape steering. Consistently, elevation of head motor neuron (SMD)’s Ca 2+ transients during escape steering is attenuated upon the removal of NLP-18 or CKR-1. in vitro , synthetic NLP-18 directly evokes CKR-1-dependent currents in oocytes and CKR-1-dependent Ca 2+ transients in SMD. Thus, cholecystokinin signaling modulates an escape circuit to generate robust escape steering.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":228336,"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":0.9509,"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":833183,"name":"Yuting Liu","orcid":"0000-0001-9175-514X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":833184,"name":"Pan S","orcid":"0009-0005-5473-0265","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":560581,"name":"Wesley Hung","orcid":"0000-0001-8488-7638","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":454781,"name":"Haiwen Li","orcid":"0000-0003-4801-085X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":833185,"name":"Wang Ya","orcid":"0000-0003-0126-801X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":833506,"name":"Zhongpu Yue","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":833186,"name":"Ming-Hai Ge","orcid":"0000-0002-8450-6273","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437409,"name":"Zheng‐Xing Wu","orcid":"0000-0002-8336-5456","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":820576,"name":"Yan Zhang","orcid":"0000-0002-4752-5432","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":704719,"name":"Peng Fei","orcid":"0000-0003-3764-817X","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":433718,"name":"Liming Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-8129-9563","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":833187,"name":"Louis Tao","orcid":"0000-0003-1802-2438","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":833188,"name":"Heng Mao","orcid":"0000-0001-8365-9027","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":360551,"name":"Mei Zhen","orcid":"0000-0003-0086-9622","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":360552,"name":"Shangbang Gao","orcid":"0000-0001-5431-4628","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":550618,"name":"Lili Chen","orcid":"0000-0002-9965-8990","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":77,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:54:50.414605Z","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":[]}