The mechanisms underlying oxidative stress (OS) resistance are not completely clear. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a good organism model to study OS because it displays stress responses similar to those in mammals. Among these mechanisms, the insulin/IGF-1 signaling (IIS) pathway is thought to affect GABAergic neurotransmission. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of heat shock stress (HS) on GABAergic activity in C. elegans. For this purpose, we tested the effect of exposure to picrotoxin (PTX), gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), hydrogen peroxide, and HS on the occurrence of a shrinking response (SR) after nose touch stimulus in N2 (WT) worms. Moreover, the effect of HS on the expression of UNC-49 (GABAA receptor ortholog) in the EG1653 strain and the effect of GABA and PTX exposure on HSP-16.2 expression in the TJ375 strain were analyzed. PTX 1 mM- or H2O2 0.7 mM-exposed worms displayed a SR in about 80 % of trials. GABA exposure did not cause a SR. HS prompted the occurrence of a SR as did PTX 1 mM or H2O2 0.7 mM exposure. In addition, HS increased UNC-49 expression, and PTX augmented HSP-16.2 expression. Thus, the results of the present study suggest that oxidative stress, through either H2O2 exposure or application of heat shock, inactivates the GABAergic system, which subsequently would affect the oxidative stress response, perhaps by enhancing the activity of transcription factors DAF-16 and HSF-1, both regulated by the IIS pathway and related to hsp-16.2 expression.
Keywords: C. elegans; GABAA receptor; HSP-16.2; Heat shock stress.