Trichoplax adhaerens is an enigmatic basal animal with an extraordinarily simple morphological organization and surprisingly complex behaviors. Basic morphological, molecular and behavioral work is essential to better understand the unique and curious life style of these organisms. We provide basic instructions on how Trichoplax can be cultured and studied in the laboratory emphasizing behavioral and cellular aspects.
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Long-term dynamics of placozoan culture: emerging models for population and space biology.
Front Cell Dev Biol
January 2025
Departments of Neuroscience and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
As the simplest free-living animal, (Placozoa) is emerging as a powerful paradigm to decipher molecular and cellular bases of behavior, enabling integrative studies at all levels of biological organization in the context of metazoan evolution and parallel origins of neural organization. However, the progress in this direction also depends on the ability to maintain a long-term culture of placozoans. Here, we report the dynamic of cultures over 11 years of observations from a starting clonal line, including 7 years of culturing under antibiotic (ampicillin) treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cobalamin processing enzyme of Trichoplax adhaerens.
J Biol Chem
December 2024
Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry and Metabolism, Department of General Pediatrics, Adolescent Medicine and Neonatology, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; CIBSS - Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling Studies, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. Electronic address:
Cobalamin (Cbl) is an essential cofactor for methionine synthase and methylmalonyl-CoA mutase, but it must first undergo chemical processing for utilization in animals. In humans, this processing comprises β-axial ligand cleavage and Cbl reduction and is performed by the enzyme MMACHC (HsCblC). Although the functionality of CblC is well-understood in higher-order organisms, little is known about the evolutionary origin of these enzymes and the reactivity of CblCs in lower-order organisms with unique environmental and cellular conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlacozoan secretory cell types implicated in feeding, innate immunity and regulation of behavior.
bioRxiv
January 2025
Light Imaging Facility, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States of America.
Placozoa are millimeter-sized, flat, irregularly shaped ciliated animals that crawl on surfaces in warm oceans feeding on biofilms, which they digest externally. They stand out from other animals due to their simple body plans. They lack organs, body cavities, muscles and a nervous system and have only seven broadly defined morphological cell types, each with a unique distribution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCoordinated cellular behavior regulated by epinephrine neurotransmitters in the nerveless placozoa.
Nat Commun
October 2024
Fang Zongxi Center, MoE Key Laboratory of Marine Genetics and Breeding, and Institute of Evolution & Marine Biodiversity, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China.
Understanding how cells communicated before the evolution of nervous systems in early metazoans is key to unraveling the origins of multicellular life. We focused on Trichoplax adhaerens, one of the earliest multicellular animals, to explore this question. Through screening a small compound library targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), we found that Trichoplax exhibits distinctive rotational movements when exposed to epinephrine.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConstitutive activity of ionotropic glutamate receptors via hydrophobic substitutions in the ligand-binding domain.
Structure
July 2024
Michael Sars Centre, University of Bergen, 5008 Bergen, Norway. Electronic address:
Neurotransmitter ligands electrically excite neurons by activating ionotropic glutamate receptor (iGluR) ion channels. Knowledge of the iGluR amino acid residues that dominate ligand-induced activation would enable the prediction of function from sequence. We therefore explored the molecular determinants of activity in rat N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-type iGluRs (NMDA receptors), complex heteromeric iGluRs comprising two glycine-binding GluN1 and two glutamate-binding GluN2 subunits, using amino acid sequence analysis, mutagenesis, and electrophysiology.
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