Orcokinin neuropeptides regulate sleep in Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

Orcokinin neuropeptides are conserved among ecdysozoans, but their functions are incompletely understood. Here, we report a role for orcokinin neuropeptides in the regulation of sleep in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The C. elegans orcokinin peptides, which are encoded by the nlp-14 and nlp-15 genes, are necessary and sufficient for quiescent behaviors during developmentally timed sleep (DTS) as well as during stress-induced sleep (SIS). The five orcokinin neuropeptides encoded by nlp-14 have distinct but overlapping functions in the regulation of movement and defecation quiescence during SIS. We suggest that orcokinins may regulate behavioral components of sleep-like states in nematodes and other ecdysozoans.

Keywords:

• C. elegans
• sleep
• nlp-14
• nlp-15
• orcokinin

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the National BioResource Project (PI, Shohei Mitani) for strains.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Some strains were provided by the CGC, which is funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440). We would also like to thank the SJU Summer Scholars Program, the John P. McNulty Fellows Program and the Peter and Dorothy Kowey Fellowship for student funding. MDN was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health Grant R15GM122058 and the National Science Foundation Grants IOS-CAREER-1845020 and DBI-MRI-1919847.