Systemic activation coordinates the heat shock response of the insulin/IGF-1 pathway inCaenorhabditis elegans

Exposure to high temperatures has an adverse effect on cellular processes and results in activation of the cellular heat shock response (HSR), a highly conserved program of inducible genes to maintain protein homeostasis 1 . The insulin/IGF-1 signaling (IIS) pathway, which has diverse roles from metabolism to stress response and longevity, is activated as part of the HSR 2–4 . Recent evidence suggest that the IIS pathway is able to affect proteostasis non-autonomously 5,6 , yet it is not known if it is activated autonomously in stressed cells or systemically as part of an organismic program. In Caenorhabditis elegans , the single forkhead box O (FOXO) homologue DAF-16 functions as the major target of the IIS pathway 7 and, together with the heat-shock factor HSF-1, induce the expression of small heat shock proteins in response to heat shock 8–10,3 . Here we use a novel microfluidic device that allows precise control of the spatiotemporal temperature profile to show that cellular activation of DAF-16 integrates local temperature sensation with systemic signals. We demonstrate that DAF-16 activation in head sensory neurons is essential for DAF-16 activation in other tissues, but show that no known thermosensory neuron is individually required. Our findings demonstrate that systemic and cell-autonomous aspects of stress response act together to facilitate a coordinated cellular response at the organismic level.