Update neuroendocrine cell / neurosecretory cell?

[gouttegd]

CL is planning to update their term for neuroendocrine cell (currently defined as 'neuron and capable of some hormone secretion') – see ongoing discussion on CL’s tracker.

The current situation in FBbt is the following:

• neurosecretory neuron is mapped to CL’s neuroendocrine cell and has a logical definition identical to that of the CL term (except of course that it uses FBbt’s neuron rather than CL’s neuron). That term covers all neurons that release hormones.
• We also have a more precise term endocrine neuron for neurosecretory neurons that release hormones into the circulatory system, defined as 'neuron and (capable of some (hormone secretion and (has target end location some circulatory system)))'. Because of that logical definition, that term is automatically classified as a subtype of neurosecretory neuron.

A key point the CL editor want to change is that, in seemingly many cases beyond Drosophila, cells that are called neurosecretory or neuroendocrine may not actually be considered as neurons, even though synaptic signalling is involved in the release of hormones by those cells.

As of today, the CL plan seems to be to:

1. redefine neuroendocrine cell as 'endocrine cell' and ('part of' some 'neuroendocrine system') (where neuroendocrine system is also a new term to be created) to cover any type of cells (neuron or not) that “both secretes hormones into the circulatory system and interacts directly with neurons”;

2. create a new term neurosecretory cell to cover any type of cell (again, neuron or not) that secretes hormones (not necessarily into the circulatory system) in response to synaptic signalling (proposed logical definition: native cell and ('capable of' some ('hormone secretion' and ('regulated by' some 'synaptic signalling'))).

If that is indeed the plan, then we will need to at least remap our neurosecretory neuron to CL’s new _neurosecretory cell, which will have a similar logical definition apart from the fact that the CL term will use native cell as its genus (I don’t think we need to update our own logical definition to follow, as Drosophila neurosecretory neurons really are neurons as far as I know).

Not sure yet if we’d want to update our endocrine neuron to follow CL – that would require also creating a neuroendocrine system in FBbt.

[Clare72]

I noticed yesterday that there was some weirdness causing (FBbt) sensory neurosecretory neurons to be classified as (CL) epithelial cells - not sure if this will be fixed by these changes, but noting here so that we can check once this is finished.

[gouttegd]

Quick update on this: in the end, CL’s plan is now to simply re-define their neuroendocrine cell as an endocrine cell that is part of some neuroendocrine system (where neuroendocrine system is a recently added term in Uberon). The term is intended to cover any cell (neuron or not) that secretes hormones to the circulatory system upon interaction with neurons. They would not create a neurosecretory cell term, contrary to what was initially planned.

That means that CL does not plan to make the same distinction that we do in FBbt, between neurosecretory cells (cells that release hormones upon neuronal input, regardless of where the hormones are released) and neuroendocrine cells (cells that release hormones upon neuronal input, where the hormones are released into the circulatory system).

If so, the mapping between FBbt’s neurosecretory cell and CL’s neuroendocrine cell would no longer be accurate: the FBbt term does not include the notion of secretion to the circulatory system, that’s the role of endocrine neuron. So we should map between our endocrine neuron and CL’s neuroendocrine cell instead.

[Clare72]

see also endocrine/NSC description in https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.11.557222v1.full