Kees Ashley L, Marneffe Catherine, Mulle Christophe
Interdisciplinary Institute for Neuroscience, CNRS, UMR 5297, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France.
J Neurochem. 2021 Feb;156(3):270-272. doi: 10.1111/jnc.15236. Epub 2020 Dec 4.
This is an Editorial Highlight of a manuscript by Oldani et al. (2020) (Oldani et al. 2020) in the current issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry, in which the authors describe synaptoPAC, a new optogenetic tool. SynaptoPAC is targeted to pre-synaptic compartments and can be used for light-induced increase of the levels of cAMP. Pre-synaptic plasticity, defined as activity-dependent modulation of neurotransmitter release, occurs over a variety of time scales. At a subset of synapses in the brain, long-term forms of pre-synaptic facilitation depend on an increase in the levels of cAMP. Light-induced modulation of cAMP at synapses expressing cAMP-dependent facilitation, has the great potential to mimic pre-synaptic plasticity at genetically targeted synapses. Therefore, synaptoPAC constitutes a powerful tool to study the role of pre-synaptic potentiation in the activity of selected neuronal circuits in relation to behaving animals with a high temporal and spatial precision.
这是对Oldani等人（2020年）（Oldani et al. 2020）发表在本期《神经化学杂志》上一篇手稿的编辑亮点，作者在文中描述了一种新的光遗传学工具——突触PAC。突触PAC靶向突触前区室，可用于光诱导增加环磷酸腺苷（cAMP）水平。突触前可塑性被定义为神经递质释放的活动依赖性调节，发生在各种时间尺度上。在大脑中一部分突触处，长期形式的突触前易化依赖于cAMP水平的增加。在表达cAMP依赖性易化的突触处，光诱导的cAMP调节具有在基因靶向突触处模拟突触前可塑性的巨大潜力。因此，突触PAC构成了一种强大的工具，可用于研究突触前增强在选定神经回路活动中所起的作用，这种研究与行为动物相关，具有高时空精度。
