Reconstructing Soma-Soma Synapse-like Vesicular Exocytosis with DNA Origami

Jiangbo Liu; Min Li; Fan Li; Zhilei Ge; Qian Li; Mengmeng Liu; Jiye Shi; Lihua Wang; Xiaolei Zuo; Chunhai Fan; Xiuhai Mao

doi:10.1021/acscentsci.1c00645

Reconstructing Soma-Soma Synapse-like Vesicular Exocytosis with DNA Origami

ACS Cent Sci. 2021 Aug 25;7(8):1400-1407. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.1c00645. Epub 2021 Jul 28.

Authors

Jiangbo Liu¹, Min Li¹, Fan Li¹, Zhilei Ge², Qian Li², Mengmeng Liu³, Jiye Shi⁴, Lihua Wang^{4

5}, Xiaolei Zuo^{1

2}, Chunhai Fan², Xiuhai Mao¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Molecular Medicine, Shanghai Key Laboratory for Nucleic Acid Chemistry and Nanomedicine, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China.
² School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules and National Center for Translational Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
³ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200127, China.
⁴ Division of Physical Biology, CAS Key Laboratory of Interfacial Physics and Technology, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China.
⁵ Bioimaging Center, Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Zhangjiang Laboratory, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201210, China.

Abstract

Cell-cell communications exhibit distinct physiological functions in immune responses and neurotransmitter signaling. Nevertheless, the ability to reconstruct a soma-soma synapse-like junction for probing intercellular communications remains difficult. In this work, we develop a DNA origami nanostructure-based method for establishing cell conjugation, which consequently facilitates the reconstruction of a soma-soma synapse-like junction. We demonstrate that intercellular communications including small molecule and membrane vesicle exchange between cells are maintained in the artificially designed synapse-like junction. By inserting the carbon fiber nanometric electrodes into the soma-soma synapse-like junction, we accomplish the real-time monitoring of individual vesicular exocytotic events and obtain the information on vesicular exocytosis kinetics via analyzing the parameters of current spikes. This strategy provides a versatile platform to study synaptic communications.