| Project/Area Number |
16570191
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Evolutionary biology
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| Research Institution | National Institute of Genetics |
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Principal Investigator |
SHIMIZU Hiroshi National Institute of Genetics, Department of Developmental Genetics, Assistant Professor, 個体遺伝研究系, 助手 (60178986)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
FUJISAWA Toshitaka National Institute of Genetics, Associate Professor, 助教授 (60000262)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2006
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2006)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,000,000)
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| Keywords | Hydra / Autonomic Nervous System / Sympathetic Nervous System / Parasympathetic Nervous System / Neuropeptides / 自律神経系 / 交感神経系 / 副交感神経系 / 刺胞動物 / 軟体動物 / 循環機能 / 消化機能 / 進化的起源 / 神経系区画化 / ヒドラEST / 神経ペプチド / ヒドラペプチドプロジェクト / ぜん動運動 |
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| Research Abstract |
Proper regulation of physiological activities is crucial for homeostasis in animals. Autonomic regulation of these activities is most developed in mammals, in which a part of peripheral nervous system, termed the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) plays the dominant role. Circulatory activity and digestive activity in vertebrates change in opposite phases to each other. The stage where circulatory activity is high and digestive activity is low is termed the "fight or flight stage" while the stage where circulatory activity is low and digestive activity is high is termed the "rest ＆ digest stage". It has been thought that the ANS originated in early vertebrate phyla and developed to its greatest extent in mammals. In this study, we compared the pattern of change of circulatory and digestive activities in several invertebrates and found that the two stages seen in mammals are also present in a wide variety of animals, including evolutionarily early-diverging invertebrate taxa. From this and other arguments we proposed a novel possibility that the basic properties of the ANS were established very early in metazoan evolution.
In this project, we also attempted to identify new neuropeptides in Hydra. In systematic identification of signaling peptides in Hydra (the Hydra Peptide Project), we found two novel neuropeptides that were encoded by a single gene. They have FRamide at the C-terminus and seem to be specific to cnidarians. No related genes or peptides were found in the databases. These peptides have opposite functions in terms of the body size.
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