Neuronal uptake of pesticides disrupts chemosensory cells of nematodes

Low doses of the acetylcholinesterase-inhibiting carbamate nematicides disrupt chemoreception in plant-parasitic nematodes. Fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)/dextran conjugates up to 12 kDa are taken up from the external medium by certain chemosensory neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans. Similar chemoreceptive neurons of the non-feeding infective stage of Heterodera glycines (soybean cyst nematode) fill with FITC and the nuclei of their cell bodies selectively stain with bisbenzimide. The widely used nematicide aldicarb disrupts the chemoreceptive response of H. glycines with 50% inhibition at very low concentrations (ca 1 pM), some 10−6-fold lower than required to affect locomotion. Similarly, the anthelmintic levamisole had this effect at 1 nM. Peptides selected as mimetics of aldicarb and levamisole also disrupt chemoreception in H. glycines and Globodera pallida at 10−3-fold or lower concentration than required to inhibit locomotion. We propose an uptake pathway for aldicarb, levamisole, peptide mimetics and other soluble molecules by retrograde transport along dendrites of chemoreceptive neurons to the cell bodies and synapses where they act. This may prove to be a general mechanism for the low-dose effects of some nematicides and anthelmintics.