Fishberg Department of Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute and Department of Neurology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA.
J Neurosci. 2010 Jul 28;30(30):9984-9. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1223-10.2010.
Persistent changes in spine shape are coupled to long-lasting synaptic plasticity in hippocampus. The molecules that coordinate such persistent structural and functional plasticity are unknown. Here, we generated mice in which the cell adhesion molecule N-cadherin was conditionally ablated from postnatal, excitatory synapses in hippocampus. We applied to adult mice of either sex a combination of whole-cell recording, two-photon microscopy, and spine morphometric analysis to show that postnatal ablation of N-cadherin has profound effects on the stability of coordinated spine enlargement and long-term potentiation (LTP) at mature CA1 synapses, with no effects on baseline spine density or morphology, baseline properties of synaptic neurotransmission, or long-term depression. Thus, N-cadherin couples persistent spine structural modifications with long-lasting synaptic functional modifications associated selectively with LTP, revealing unexpectedly distinct roles at mature synapses in comparison with earlier, broader functions in synapse and spine development.
脊柱形状的持续变化与海马体中持久的突触可塑性有关。协调这种持久的结构和功能可塑性的分子尚不清楚。在这里，我们生成了条件性敲除海马体中兴奋性突触后天 N-钙黏蛋白的小鼠。我们对雌雄成年小鼠应用全细胞记录、双光子显微镜和棘突形态计量分析，结果表明，后天 N-钙黏蛋白的敲除对成熟 CA1 突触协调的棘突增大和长时程增强 (LTP) 的稳定性有深远的影响，而对基础棘突密度或形态、突触神经传递的基础特性或长时程压抑没有影响。因此，N-钙黏蛋白将持久的脊柱结构修饰与与 LTP 相关的持久的突触功能修饰联系起来，这揭示了与早期更广泛的突触和棘突发育功能相比，在成熟突触中具有出乎意料的不同作用。
