Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T04:05:10.665Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Optical Mesurements of Presynaptic Function: What Keeps Vesicle Traffic Going

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Timothy A. Ryan
Timothy A. Ryan*
Affiliation:
Department of Biochemistry, Cornell University Medical College, New York, NY10021
Get access

Extract

The nervous system has evolved to make use of a variety of mechanisms that allow information to flow and be processed among a large collection of individual cells. The communication between individual brain cells occurs largely at chemical synapses. In these compartments, chemical messengers are packaged into small vesicles that fuse with the cell membrane upon stimulation, releasing neurotransmitter.. The average total number of synaptic vesicles in a typical central nervous system synapse is only a few hundred and as a result an efficient local recycling mechanism operates in order to replenish this pool during periods of even modest neuronal activity. Without this membrane recycling, synapses quickly become depleted of vesicles, and soon fail to communicate information between cells.

We make use of optical techniques to follow the trafficking of synaptic vesicles at synapses formed between hippocampal neurons grown in culture. Recycling synaptic vesicles can be readily labeled using the fluorescent amphipathic membrane dye FM 1-43.

Type
Dynamics of Cellular Membrane Traffic
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 4 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '98, Microscopy Society of America 56th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 32nd Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia July 12-16, 1998 , July 1998 , pp. 1020 - 1021
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Betz, W. J. & Bewick, G.S.. Science 255(1992)200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Betz, W. J., Mao, F. & Bewick, G. S.. J. Neurosci. 12 (1992) 363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Ryan, T. A., Reuter, H., Wendland, B., et al. Neuron 11 (1993)713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Ryan, T. A., Smith, S. J. Neuron 14 (1995) 983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.Ryan, T. A., Reuter, H. and Smith, S. J. Nature 388 (1997) 478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar