WormMine: AnatomyTerm WBbt:0006840

• Definition: neuron that uses vesicular acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter.
• Name: cholinergic neuron
• Primary Identifier: WBbt:0006840
• Synonym: ACh neuron

25 Children

Definition	Name	Synonym	Primary Identifier
Neuron class of eleven motoneurons, distributed along the ventral cord, which innervate ventral body muscles.	VB neuron		WBbt:0005336
Neuron class of nine ventral cord motor neuron, innervates dorsal muscle.	DA neuron		WBbt:0005278
Neuron class of seven motoneurons that innervate dorsal muscles and have cell bodies in the ventral cord.	DB neuron		WBbt:0005274
Neuron class of twelve motoneurons, distributed along the ventral cord, which innervate ventral body muscles.	VA neuron		WBbt:0005339
Neuron class of eleven motoneurons, with cell bodies in the ventral cord, which innervate dorsal muscles.	AS neuron		WBbt:0005334
Neuron class of six motoneurons in the ventral cord, which innervate ventral body muscles and the vm2 muscles of the vulva.	VC neuron		WBbt:0005304
Neuron class of one pharyngeal motorneuron.	M5 neuron	lineage name: MSpaaapap	WBbt:0004465
Neuron class of two pharyngeal motor neurons.	M2 neuron	m2	WBbt:0003634
Neuron class of two marginal cell neuron of the pharynx.	MC neuron	marginal cell neuron	WBbt:0003638
Neuron class of one pharyngeal motorneuron.	M4 neuron	lineage name: MSpaaaaaa	WBbt:0004467
Neuron class of one pharyngeal motorneuron.	M1 neuron	lineage name: MSpaapaaa	WBbt:0004488
Neuron class of two male-specific spicule neuron type C.	SPC		WBbt:0006861
A neuron belonging to a class of 2 bilateral, cholinergic, peptidergic, male-specific, ciliated neurons generated by transdifferentiation from a male PHso1 glial cell in the late L4 larval stage of a male C. elegans animal.	PHD	Phasmid D neuron	WBbt:0008630
Neuron class of two male-specific post cloacal sensilla neuron type C.	PCC		WBbt:0006860
Neuron class of two interneurons with laterally located cell bodies.	SDQ		WBbt:0006844
Neuron class of two motoneurons that innervate vulval muscles in the hermaphrodite.	HSN	hermaphrodite specific neuron	WBbt:0006830
Neuron class of three interneurons, which send processes anteriorly up the sub-lateral cords in the head.	SAB		WBbt:0005396
Neuron class of two neurons with cell bodies situated in the lumbar ganglion.	PLN		WBbt:0006855
Neuron class of two neurons with cell bodies situated in the lumbar ganglion, send processes anteriorly, which eventually enter the nerve ring; they also have posteriorly directed processes that run into the tailspike.	ALN		WBbt:0006851
Neuron class of four interneurons that send processes anteriorly up the sub-lateral cords in the head.	SAA		WBbt:0005397
Neuron class of four motoneurons, which innervate muscles in the head via NMJs in the nerve ring and also send processes posteriorly down the sub-lateral cords.	SMD		WBbt:0005353
Neuron class of four motoneurons, which innervate muscles in the head via NMJs in the nerve ring and also send processes posteriorly down the sub-lateral cords.	SMB		WBbt:0005355
Neuron class of four interneurons, which send processes posteriorly down the sub-lateral cords. SIBV has cell bodies, in the ventral ganglion, which send processes that run right round the nerve ring and return to the neuropile of the ventral ganglion.	SIB		WBbt:0005359
Neuron class of two male-specific post cloacal sensilla neuron type B.	PCB		WBbt:0006859
Neuron class of four interneurons, which send processes posteriorly down the sub-lateral cords.	SIA		WBbt:0005361

0 Expression Clusters

75 Expression Patterns

• Primary Identifier: Expr4765
• Pattern: Both Pcho-1::GFP fusions are strongly expressed in the nervous system. However, there were some differences between the two reporters; the 7.6-kb reporter was expressed in several head neurons that did not express the 5.2-kb reporter. The 7.6-kb reporter was expressed in most cholinergic neurons, as well as some non-neuronal cells, including the posterior-most three or four intestinal cells. The cho-1 reporter was not expressed in all cholinergic neurons, however, at least three cholinergic neurons in the head lacked detectable expression. In addition, the cho-1 reporter was expressed in several additional (presumably non-cholinergic) neurons in the head and tail. Thus, expression of the CHO-1 transporter is largely, but not exclusively associated with cholinergic neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr4994
• Remark: Picture: Figure 1B, Figure S3A.
• Pattern: The unc-80 GFP reporter is broadly expressed in the nervous system. The reporter is expressed in both acetylcholine and GABA motor neurons as determined by double-labeling. Although expression is observed in other tissues, no expression was observed in the body muscle. unc-80 is strongly expressed in neurons. Strong expression is observed in the nervous system and in the vulval muscle. Expression was also shown in the anterior excretory canal just posterior of the head, the vulval muscle, distal tip cell of the gonad, and the anal depressor muscle in the tail.

• Primary Identifier: Expr4957
• Remark: Picture: Fig 3A, 3B.
• Pattern: A pkc-1 transcriptional reporter was expressed exclusively in neurons. Strong expression was seen in the majority of ventral cord motor neurons, including both cholinergic and GABAergic motor neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr4326
• Pattern: CHO-1:GFP was expressed exclusively in cholinergic neurons, including motor neurons of the nerve cord and central neurons of the nerve ring.
• Subcellular Localization: CHO-1:GFP localized to axonal varicosities and colocalized with a fluorescent reporter of the synaptic vesicle marker synaptobrevin [vesicle-associated membrane protein (VAMP)].

• Primary Identifier: Expr13175
• Pattern: lgc-46 is broadly expressed in the nervous system, including motor neurons. Co-expression of Plgc-46-GFP with markers for cholinergic (Punc-17-mCherry) and GABAergic (Pttr-39-mCherry) neurons revealed that lgc-46 is strongly expressed in cholinergic motor neurons, and weakly expressed in GABAergic motor neurons.
• Subcellular Localization: In the DA9 cholinergic motor neuron, which synapses onto dorsal body wall muscles, LGC-46::GFP was detected only in the dorsal side of L4 and adult animals. These results indicate that LGC-46 primarily localizes to the axonal compartment of cholinergic motor neurons. To determine if the punctate pattern of LGC-46::GFP corresponded to presynaptic terminals, we co-immunostained LGC-46::GFP together with endogenous active zone protein RIM/UNC-10. LGC-46::GFP displayed a high degree of overlap with UNC-10. Quantitative analyses of colocalization indicate that LGC-46 localizes to the release sites of synaptic vesicles (SVs). Additionally, LGC-46::GFP showed co-localization with a synaptic vesicle marker mCherry::RAB-3 expressed in cholinergic motor neurons. To our knowledge LGC-46 is the first reported LGIC localized to presynaptic terminals in C. elegans.

• Primary Identifier: Expr7977
• Remark: Picture: Figure 8. Reporter gene fusion type not specified.
• Pattern: Expressed in cholinergic MNs, head and tail neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3526
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic & GABAergic motor neurons, head & tail. Non-neuronal expression: pharynx, intestine.

• Primary Identifier: Expr13357
• Pattern: Peel-1::GFP was observed in non-neuronal tissue (pharynx, intestine, and vulva) and was strongly expressed in neurons, including numerous neurons in the head, motor neurons, mechanosensory neurons, HSN neurons, and tail neurons. GFP was detected in cholinergic and GABAergic motor neurons. No expression was observed in muscle.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12898
• Pattern: A transcriptional reporter containing the gbb-1 promoter driving expression of GFP was broadly expressed in the nervous system, including cholinergic but not GABAergic motor neurons or muscle.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12178
• Pattern: A transcriptional reporter containing the ckr-2 promoter was expressed in both cholinergic and GABAergic motor neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12719
• Pattern: acc-1 and acc-2 fosmid reporters show very restricted and non-overlapping expression in the adult nervous system. The acc-1 fosmid reporter is expressed in a subset of cholinergic neurons, including cholinergic neurons in the ventral nerve cord, the retrovesicular ganglion and a few head neurons (including the SMD, RMD motor neurons, the AVA and AVE command interneurons and the SAA neurons). A small number of glutamatergic neurons also express acc-1 (including the pharyngeal neurons MI and M3, the PLM neurons and an unidentified neuronal pair in the lateral ganglion).

• Primary Identifier: Expr13670
• Pattern: In transgenic worms, aipr-1::GFP was observed in a variety of cell types, including neurons, body muscles, amphid sheath cells, spermatheca, and the intestine. Both acetylcholine and GABA motor neurons express aipr-1, as indicated by the co-labeling of these neurons by a red fluorescent protein expressed under the control of cell-specific promoters.

• Primary Identifier: Expr9932
• Pattern: ric-7 promoter expresses nuclear localized Cherry in many neurons, including both cholinergic and GABAergic motor neurons.
• Subcellular Localization: GFP-tagged RIC-7 constructs was expressed in the cholinergic DA neurons (using the unc-129 promoter). The RIC-7::GFP protein was localized in a punctate distribution in both cell bodies and dorsal cord axons. The majority of RIC-7 puncta co-localized with an SV marker (mCherry-tagged Endophilin), suggesting that RIC-7 is targeted to synapses.

• Primary Identifier: Expr10051
• Pattern: sphk-1::GFP was expressed in many neurons, including a majority of cholinergic and GABAergic motor neurons. In addition, GFP fluorescence was detected in body wall muscles, intestine, and hypodermis.

• Primary Identifier: Expr14692
• Pattern: A fosmid reporter for mbl-1 exhibits expression in the ALM neuron, as well as many other neurons in the nervous system. This is in line with previous reports on mbl-1 expression (Spilker et al., 2012). MBL-1, visualized by a translational RFP fusion is expressed specifically in the excitatory cholinergic neurons of the ventral nerve cord, visualized by an unc-17::BFP promoter reporter.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3527
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic & GABAergic motor neurons, head, tail & body. Non-neuronal expression: pharynx, intestine, vulva, body wall muscle, hypodermis, seam cells.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3532
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic & GABAergic motor neurons, head, tail & body. Non-neuronal expression: intestine, vulva, pharynx, body wall muscle, hypodermis, seam, excretory canal and cell.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3536
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic & GABAergic motor neurons, head, tail & body. Non-neuronal expression: pharynx, intestine, vulval muscle.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3537
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic & GABAergic motor neurons, head, tail & body. Non-neuronal expression: pharynx, intestine, vulva, body wall muscle, hypodermis, seam cells.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3540
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic motor neurons, head & body. Non-neuronal expression: pharynx, intestine, coelomocytes.

• Primary Identifier: Expr3542
• Pattern: Neuronal expression: cholinergic & GABAergic motor neurons, head, tail & body. Non-neuronal expression: pharynx, intestine, vulval muscle, body wall muscle, coelomocytes.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12845
• Pattern: In agreement with a previous study (Expr8228), GFP fluorescence was observed in the pharyngeal, bodywall and vulval muscles. In addition, eat-6 expression was found in many neurons, including the ventral cord ACh neurons, as well as in several head and tail neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr9409
• Pattern: Adult Expression: pharynx; Reproductive System; vulval muscle; body wall muscle. Larval Expression: pharynx; body wall muscle
• Subcellular Localization: Sub-cellular localization within the body wall muscle: Sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR)-like

• Primary Identifier: Expr10030
• Pattern: rsbp-1 transgene was expressed in head and tail neurons and motor neurons of the ventral cord that innervate body-wall muscle cells. Expression was also observed in vulval, pharyngeal, and body-wall muscle cells. The rsbp-1p::GFP transgene was expressed in many ventral cord motor neurons. We consistently found rsbp-1p::GFP expression in ventral cord neurons between the retrovesicular ganglia and pre-anal ganglia indicating that RSBP-1 was expressed in both cholinergic and GABAergic motor neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr13811
• Pattern: hpo-30::GFP was observed in the ventral cord motor neurons as previously reported, further diffuse expression was present in the body-wall muscles. The GFP-tagged hpo-30 promoter showed co-expression with mCherry labeled cholinergic neurons and not with GABAergic neurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr14138
• Remark: Other strain: OH14235
• Pattern: ASH, ASI (dim), ADF, a subset of cholinergic VNC neurons, PHA, PHB

• Primary Identifier: Expr13522
• Pattern: grk-2::tagRFP is expressed broadly in head neurons and colocalizes with GFP in several head acetylcholine neurons. Specifically, grk-2 is expressed in the following head acetylcholine neurons: the AVA, AVB, AVD, and AVE premotor interneurons; SMD and RMD head motor neurons; and in the AIN, AIY, SIA, SIB, and SAA interneurons.

• Primary Identifier: Expr16009
• Pattern: We found that ckr-1 is broadly expressed in the nervous system, showing expression in a subset of ventral nerve cord motor neurons, amphid and phasmid sensory neurons, premotor interneurons, and motor neurons in the nerve ring. We identified many of these neurons, largely from analysis of ckr-1 co-expression with previously characterized reporters. In the ventral nerve cord, we found that ckr-1 is expressed in cholinergic, but not GABAergic, ventral cord motor neurons. Amongst head neurons, the ckr-1 reporter is expressed in GABAergic RMEV, RMED, AVL and RIS neurons, cholinergic SMDV, SMDD, and RIV head motor neurons, the interneuron RIG, the serotonergic NSM neuron, and in the interneurons AIA and AIB. Additional studies using DiI uptake indicated that ckr-1 is also expressed in the amphid sensory neurons ASK and ASI and the phasmid sensory neurons PHA and PHB. With the exception of the ventral cord cholinergic neurons, the ckr-1 reporter almost exclusively labeled neurons that do not receive direct synaptic input from DVA, suggesting that NLP-12 acts at least partially through extrasynaptic mechanisms.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12262
• Pattern: The translational GFP-tagged fusion protein was expressed in a subset of ventral cord motor neurons (VA, VB, DA, DB), the motor neuron PDA, the tail interneurons DVA and PVT, the head interneurons AIY and AVD, and in the head mesodermal cell. The LGC-35::GFP construct, which includes the introns, exhibited robust expression in the sphincter muscle, and all of the acetylcholine ventral cord motor neurons, except the AS and VC class of neurons. No localization was observed in GABA motor neurons.
• Subcellular Localization: The LGC-35::GFP fusion protein was localized to the plasma membrane as expected, but fluorescence was also observed in the cytoplasm probably due to transgene overexpression.

• Primary Identifier: Expr12263
• Pattern: In contrast to hermaphrodites, lgc-35 is not expressed in any of the male enteric muscles, including the sphincter muscle, suggesting that it does not play a role in defecation in adult males. Like hermaphrodites, adult males expressed lgc-35 in acetylcholine motor neurons, the head mesodermal cell, and in the head interneurons AIY and AVD. In the male tail, lgc-35 is expressed in sensory rays 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9, the oblique muscle, the SPV neurons, and possibly the SPD neuron.

0 Life Stages

1 Parents

Definition	Name	Synonym	Primary Identifier
Major cell type of nervous tissue, specialized for transmission of information in the form of patterns of impulses.	neuron	neurone	WBbt:0003679