{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009185","title":"Neuron tracing and quantitative analyses of dendritic architecture reveal symmetrical three-way-junctions and phenotypes of git-1 in C. elegans","abstract":"Complex dendritic trees are a distinctive feature of neurons. Alterations to dendritic morphology are associated with developmental, behavioral and neurodegenerative changes. The highly-arborized PVD neuron of C. elegans serves as a model to study dendritic patterning; however, quantitative, objective and automated analyses of PVD morphology are missing. Here, we present a method for neuronal feature extraction, based on deep-learning and fitting algorithms. The extracted neuronal architecture is represented by a database of structural elements for abstracted analysis. We obtain excellent automatic tracing of PVD trees and uncover that dendritic junctions are unevenly distributed. Surprisingly, these junctions are three-way-symmetrical on average, while dendritic processes are arranged orthogonally. We quantify the effect of mutation in git-1, a regulator of dendritic spine formation, on PVD morphology and discover a localized reduction in junctions. Our findings shed new light on PVD architecture, demonstrating the effectiveness of our objective analyses of dendritic morphology and suggest molecular control mechanisms.","journal":"PLoS Computational Biology","year":2021,"id":204459,"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":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9472,"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":787361,"name":"Yael Iosilevskii","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":786802,"name":"Anna Meledin","orcid":"0000-0003-0851-0585","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":786803,"name":"Benjamin Podbilewicz","orcid":"0000-0002-0411-4182","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":786804,"name":"Tom Shemesh","orcid":"0000-0003-4318-6258","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":422182,"name":"Omer Yuval","orcid":"0000-0002-4994-9677","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":95,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:51:26.121843Z","pmid":"34280180","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":[]}