Biology subjects

Ingersoll, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Ingersoll, M..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Husbandry and Maintenance of Carausius morosus Laboratory Populations

Carausius morosus, the Indian stick insect, is a slender twig-like insect endemic to India. Though widely introduced through captivity around the world and commonly used in laboratories or kept as a household pet, standardized animal husbandry laboratory protocols are lacking. Here we report detailed laboratory culture conditions for C. morosus. We maintain stocks at 23 {degrees}C, 70% relative humidity, and a 12:12 hour light-dark photoperiod. This culture has been successfully sustained under these conditions for over two years, with standardized protocols in place for dietary and cage setup conditions. We also report methods for egg and hatchling care to support ongoing experiments with C. morosus. These standardized methods improve reproducibility and accessibility, enabling the broader use of C. morosus as a laboratory model system for developmental, behavioral, and physiological studies. SummaryThis paper outlines detailed protocols for maintaining a Carausius morosus laboratory colony, including key procedures for animal husbandry, egg and hatchling care, and an overview of the species lifespan and biological characteristics.

developmental biology↗

bioRxiv2026

Insulin receptor signaling in gustatory cells suppresses sugar taste sensitivity and feeding in Drosophila

Dynamic sensory processing helps animals adjust behaviors in response to changing environments and internal states. Hunger is a salient internal cue that can directly modify chemosensory signaling to promote homeostatic behavior. In Drosophila melanogaster, hunger enhances the sensitivity of sweet gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs) to encourage feeding, and here we investigated candidate hunger/satiety hormone receptors to identify mechanisms of metabolic regulation in primary taste cells. The conserved insulin receptor (InR) is expressed in sweet GRNs, and targeted InR knockdown and inactivation within these cells elevated sucrose sensitivity, increased sucrose consumption, and altered feeding behavior under sated conditions. Additionally, sweet cellular responses to sucrose were reciprocally affected by inactive and overactive InR signaling. These findings reveal that InR signaling can modulate sweet sensitivity at the level of primary taste cells, suppressing feeding by reducing taste responsiveness under specific metabolic conditions.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2026

Are Synaptic Clefts Directionally Oriented?

Synapses are fundamental building blocks of cortical circuits, yet their geometry is typically regarded as a local property, independent of mesoscale architecture. The prevailing assumption is that synaptic clefts are isotropically oriented in space. Here, we test this assumption by analyzing approximately 117 million synaptic clefts from two independent 1 mm3 electron microscopy datasets: the human H01 middle temporal gyrus and the mouse MICrONS primary visual cortex, using three independent cleft-extraction methods. Across both volumes, we observe that synaptic cleft orientations are not randomly distributed, but instead show statistically significant and spatially coherent directional biases across cortical layers. This mesoscale anisotropy is conserved across species, yet is stronger and more consistent in human association cortex than in mouse sensory cortex, a difference that may reflect the expanded dendritic arbors and greater integrative demands of human pyramidal neurons. We propose that cleft orientation bias is a geometric consequence of the axonal and dendritic architecture that shapes synapse formation, representing a new candidate organizational feature of cortical microarchitecture with potential implications for circuit computation and neuromodulation. These findings motivate targeted physiological studies to determine whether synaptic orientation contributes causally to cortical function.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Uridine as a potentiator of aminoglycosides through activation of carbohydrate transporters

Aminoglycosides (AGs) are broad-spectrum antibiotics effective against Gram-negative bacteria. AG uptake depends on membrane potential, but the precise mechanisms are incompletely understood. We report here a new mechanism of active AG uptake in Gram-negative bacteria. In E. coli, overexpression of various carbohydrate transporters increases susceptibility to AGs. Conversely, deletion of a single transporter has little impact. We propose a new uptake model where AGs act as substrates for redundant carbohydrate transporters. This mechanism appears to be shared among Gram-negative ESKAPE pathogens. We screened for molecules that induce transporters expression and identified uridine. When uridine is co-administered with AGs under conditions mimicking urinary tract infections, the efficacy of AG therapies is significantly improved against E. coli, including resistant strains, due to enhanced bacterial uptake. Based on previous knowledge on the use of uridine in humans, we propose that uridine can be a potentiating adjuvant to AG treatment of infectious diseases in the hospital.

microbiology↗