In mammals, glutamate is an important excitatory neurotransmitter. Glutamate and glutamate receptors are found in areas specifically involved in pain sensation, transmission and transduction such as peripheral nervous system, spinal cord and brain. In C. elegans, several studies have suggested glutamate pathways are associated with withdrawal responses to mechanical stimuli and to chemical repellents. However, few evidences demonstrate that glutamate pathways are important to mediate nocifensive response to noxious heat. The thermal avoidance behavior of C. elegans was studied and results illustrated that mutants of glutamate receptors (glr-1, glr-2, nmr-1, nmr-2) behaviors was not affected. However, results revealed that all strains of eat-4 mutants, C. elegans vesicular glutamate transporters, displayed defective thermal avoidance behaviors. Due to the interplay between the glutamate and the FLP-18/FLP-21/NPR-1 pathways, we analyzed the effectors FLP-18 and FLP-21 at the protein level, we did not observe biologically significant differences compared to N2 (WT) strain (fold-change < 2) except for the IK602 strain. The data presented in this manuscript reveals that glutamate signaling pathways are essential to elicit a nocifensive response to noxious heat in C. elegans.

中文翻译：

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受损的EAT-4囊泡谷氨酸转运蛋白导致秀丽隐杆线虫对有害热量的伤害性伤害反应。

在哺乳动物中，谷氨酸是重要的兴奋性神经递质。谷氨酸和谷氨酸受体存在于特别涉及疼痛感觉，传递和转导的区域，例如周围神经系统，脊髓和脑。在秀丽隐杆线虫中，一些研究表明谷氨酸途径与对机械刺激和化学驱避剂的戒断反应有关。但是，很少有证据表明谷氨酸途径对于介导对有害热量的伤害反应非常重要。研究了秀丽隐杆线虫的避热行为，结果表明，谷氨酸受体的突变体（glr-1，glr-2，nmr-1，nmr-2）的行为不受影响。但是，结果表明，eat-4突变体的所有菌株，秀丽隐杆线虫囊泡谷氨酸转运蛋白，均显示出不良的避热行为。由于谷氨酸和FLP-18 / FLP-21 / NPR-1途径之间的相互作用，我们在蛋白质水平上分析了效应子FLP-18和FLP-21，我们没有观察到与N2（WT ）应变（倍数变化<2），但IK602应变除外。该手稿中的数据表明，谷氨酸信号通路对于引发秀丽隐杆线虫对有害热量的伤害反应至关重要。