Super-resolution imaging of synaptic and extra-synaptic AMPA receptors with different-sized fluorescent probes
Abstract
Previous studies tracking AMPA receptor (AMPAR) diffusion at synapses observed a large mobile extrasynaptic AMPAR pool. Using super-resolution microscopy, we examined how fluorophore size and photostability affected AMPAR trafficking outside of, and within, post-synaptic densities (PSDs) from rats. Organic fluorescent dyes (≈4 nm), quantum dots, either small (≈10 nm diameter; sQDs) or big (>20 nm; bQDs), were coupled to AMPARs via different-sized linkers. We find that >90% of AMPARs labeled with fluorescent dyes or sQDs were diffusing in confined nanodomains in PSDs, which were stable for 15 minutes or longer. Less than 10% of sQD-AMPARs were extrasynaptic and highly mobile. In contrast, 5–10% of bQD-AMPARs were in PSDs and 90-95% were extrasynaptic as previously observed. Contrary to the hypothesis that AMPAR entry is limited by the occupancy of open PSD "slots", our findings suggest that AMPARs rapidly enter stable "nanodomains" in PSDs with lifetime ≥15 minutes, and do not accumulate in extrasynaptic membranes.
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Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (NIH NS090903)
- William N Green
- Paul R Selvin
National Science Foundation (PHY-1430124)
- Paul R Selvin
National Science Foundation (CBET-1264051)
- Sheldon Park
National Institutes of Health (NIH NS100019)
- William N Green
- Paul R Selvin
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Primary hippocampal cultures were prepared from E18 rats according to UIUC guidelines. All rats were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (#15254) of UIUC.
Copyright
© 2017, Lee et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
In eukaryotes, RNAs transcribed by RNA Pol II are modified at the 5′ end with a 7-methylguanosine (m7G) cap, which is recognized by the nuclear cap binding complex (CBC). The CBC plays multiple important roles in mRNA metabolism, including transcription, splicing, polyadenylation, and export. It promotes mRNA export through direct interaction with a key mRNA export factor, ALYREF, which in turn links the TRanscription and EXport (TREX) complex to the 5′ end of mRNA. However, the molecular mechanism for CBC-mediated recruitment of the mRNA export machinery is not well understood. Here, we present the first structure of the CBC in complex with an mRNA export factor, ALYREF. The cryo-EM structure of CBC-ALYREF reveals that the RRM domain of ALYREF makes direct contact with both the NCBP1 and NCBP2 subunits of the CBC. Comparing CBC-ALYREF with other cellular complexes containing CBC and/or ALYREF components provides insights into the coordinated events during mRNA transcription, splicing, and export.