{"doi":"10.1101/2025.06.23.661018","title":"Auxin-inducible degradation of UNC-116 in <i>C. elegans</i> inhibits bidirectional dense core vesicle transport and worm locomotion on different timescales","abstract":"Abstract The microtubule motor kinesin-1 is vital in neurons, with mutations being associated with neurological diseases. Deletion of the Caenorhabditis elegans kinesin-1 gene unc-116 is lethal, and viable mutants are uncoordinated. Here, we use auxin-mediated degradation to deplete UNC-116 protein at different developmental stages and monitor the effects on cargo transport and locomotion. UNC-116 is substantially degraded within 1 hour of auxin treatment, by which time bidirectional dense core vesicle (DCV) motility is affected. After 4 hours, dynein-driven DCV movement is lost and only limited plus-end-directed DCV motility remains, likely driven by kinesin-3 (UNC-104). DCV movement recovers substantially after rescue from auxin for 24 hours. There is a time-lag between loss of protein and effects on locomotion, as crawling and swimming/thrashing is unaffected until 6-14 hours on auxin. By 18-24 hours, animals are as uncoordinated as the unc-116(rh24sb79) mutant. Notably, degradation of UNC-116 in neurons alone inhibits crawling and swimming, revealing the importance of neuronal kinesin-1 for locomotion. Overall, by bypassing early developmental UNC-116 functions, we reveal that UNC-116 is essential for bidirectional DCV transport and crucial for locomotion.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2025,"id":568987,"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":0.9552,"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":1245971,"name":"Anna Gavrilova","orcid":"0000-0003-2278-7820","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1245974,"name":"Gino Poulin","orcid":"0000-0003-1016-348X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1245975,"name":"Viki Allan","orcid":"0000-0003-4583-0836","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1245972,"name":"Astrid Boström","orcid":"0000-0003-0329-6305","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":124,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:55.795846Z","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":[]}