TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grein, Stephan
A1  - Bunse, Stefanie
A1  - Schuman, Erich
A1  - Queisser, Sean Gillian
T1  - Long-term potentiation through calcium-mediated N-Cadherin interaction is tightly controlled by the three-dimensional architecture of the synapse
T2  - BMC neuroscience
N2  - Poster presentation:  Twenty Second Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting: CNS*2013. Paris, France. 13-18 July 2013.
The synaptic cleft is an extracellular domain that is capable of relaying a presynaptically received electrical signal by diffusive neurotransmitters to the postsynaptic membrane. The cleft is trans-synaptically bridged by ring-like shaped clusters of pre- and postsynaptically localized calcium-dependent adhesion proteins of the N-Cadherin type and is possibly the smallest intercircuit in nervous systems [1]. The strength of association between the pre- and postsynaptic membranes can account for synaptic plasticity such as long-term potentiation [2]. Through neuronal activity the intra- and extracellular calcium levels are modulated through calcium exchangers embedded in the pre- and postsynaptic membrane. Variations of the concentration of cleft calcium induces changes in the N-Cadherin-zipper, that in synaptic resting states is rigid and tightly connects the pre- and postsynaptic domain. During synaptic activity calcium concentrations are hypothesized to drop below critical thresholds which leads to loosening of the N-Cadherin connections and subsequently "unzips" the Cadherin-mediated connection. These processes may result in changes in synaptic strength [2]. In order to investigate the calcium-mediated N-Cadherin dynamics at the synaptic cleft, we developed a three-dimensional model including the cleft morphology and all prominent calcium exchangers and corresponding density distributions [3-6]. The necessity for a fully three-dimensional model becomes apparent, when investigating the effects of the spatial architecture of the synapse [7], [8]. Our data show, that the localization of calcium channels with respect to the N-Cadherin ring has substantial effects on the time-scales on which the Cadherin-zipper switches between states, ranging from seconds to minutes. This will have significant effects on synaptic signaling. Furthermore we see, that high-frequency action potential firing can only be relayed to the Calcium/N-Cadherin-system at a synapse under precise spatial synaptic reorganization.
Y1  - 2013
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/31353
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-313533
SN  - 1471-2202
N1  - © 2013 Grein et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 14
IS  - (Suppl 1):P321
SP  - 1
EP  - 2
PB  - BioMed Central
CY  - London
ER  -