AF1 (KNEFIRFamide) was the first neuropeptide to be isolated from a nematode 1. It has a potent stimulatory action on the body wall muscle of Ascaris. Furthermore, it has a potent stimulatory action on the pharyngeal muscle of C.elegans 2. A C.elegans gene,
flp-8, encoding multiple copies of AF1 has been identified 3, however deletion of this gene does not result in any obvious phenotype (Kim & Li, Soc. Neurosci. Abs. 1999). To delineate the putative physiological role of this peptide in the control of locomotion and feeding, and to define the signalling pathway, we are comparing the response to AF1 in wild type and mutant strains.