Trafficking proteins show limited differences in mobility across different postsynaptic spines

Nikolaos Mougios; Felipe Opazo; Silvio O Rizzoli; Sofiia Reshetniak

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.105971

Trafficking proteins show limited differences in mobility across different postsynaptic spines

iScience. 2023 Jan 13;26(2):105971. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.105971. eCollection 2023 Feb 17.

Authors

Nikolaos Mougios^{1

2}, Felipe Opazo^{1

2

3}, Silvio O Rizzoli^{1

2}, Sofiia Reshetniak¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Neuro- and Sensory Physiology, University Medical Center Göttingen, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.
² Center for Biostructural Imaging of Neurodegeneration (BIN), University of Göttingen Medical Center, 37075 Göttingen, Germany.
³ NanoTag Biotechnologies GmbH, Göttingen, Germany.

Abstract

The function of the postsynaptic compartment is based on the presence and activity of postsynaptic receptors, whose dynamics are controlled by numerous scaffolding, signaling and trafficking proteins. Although the receptors and the scaffolding proteins have received substantial attention, the trafficking proteins have not been investigated extensively. Their mobility rates are unknown, and it is unclear how the postsynaptic environment affects their dynamics. To address this, we analyzed several trafficking proteins (α-synuclein, amphiphysin, calmodulin, doc2a, dynamin, and endophilin), estimating their movement rates in the dendritic shaft, as well as in morphologically distinct "mushroom" and "stubby" postsynapse types. The diffusion parameters were surprisingly similar across dendritic compartments, and a few differences between proteins became evident only in the presence of a synapse neck. We conclude that the movement of trafficking proteins is not strongly affected by the postsynaptic compartment, in stark contrast to the presynapse, which regulates strongly the movement of such proteins.

Keywords: Cell biology; Molecular biology; Neuroscience.

Associated data

figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.21732167