Brain-specific Drp1 regulates postsynaptic endocytosis and dendrite formation independently of mitochondrial division

Abstract

Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) divides mitochondria as a mechano-chemical GTPase. However, the function of Drp1 beyond mitochondrial division is largely unknown. Multiple Drp1 isoforms are produced through mRNA splicing. One such isoform, Drp1ABCD, contains all four alternative exons and is specifically expressed in the brain. Here, we studied the function of Drp1ABCD in mouse neurons in both culture and animal systems using isoform-specific knockdown by shRNA and isoform-specific knockout by CRISPR/Cas9. We found that the expression of Drp1ABCD is induced during postnatal brain development. Drp1ABCD is enriched in dendritic spines and regulates postsynaptic clathrin-mediated endocytosis by positioning the endocytic zone at the postsynaptic density, independently of mitochondrial division. Drp1ABCD loss promotes the formation of ectopic dendrites in neurons and enhanced sensorimotor gating behavior in mice. These data reveal that Drp1ABCD controls postsynaptic endocytosis, neuronal morphology and brain function.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Kie Itoh

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Daisuke Murata

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Takashi Kato

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Tatsuya Yamada

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Yoichi Araki

    Solomon H Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Atsushi Saito

    Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Yoshihiro Adachi

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Atsushi Igarashi

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Shuo Li

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Mikhail Pletnikov

    Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Rick L Huganir

    Solomon H Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Shigeki Watanabe

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  13. Atsushi Kamiya

    Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  14. Miho Iijima

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    For correspondence
    miijima@jhmi.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  15. Hiromi Sesaki

    Department of Cell Biology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
    For correspondence
    hsesaki@jhmi.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6877-3929

Funding

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM131768)

  • Miho Iijima

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM123266)

  • Hiromi Sesaki

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM130695)

  • Hiromi Sesaki

National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA041208)

  • Mikhail Pletnikov
  • Atsushi Kamiya

National Institute of Mental Health (MH083728)

  • Mikhail Pletnikov

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All animal work was conducted according to the guidelines established by the Johns Hopkins University Committee on Animal Care and Use. The protocol (MO17M181) has been approved by the same committee.

Copyright

© 2019, Itoh 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.

Metrics

  • 3,257
    views
  • 631
    downloads
  • 36
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Kie Itoh
  2. Daisuke Murata
  3. Takashi Kato
  4. Tatsuya Yamada
  5. Yoichi Araki
  6. Atsushi Saito
  7. Yoshihiro Adachi
  8. Atsushi Igarashi
  9. Shuo Li
  10. Mikhail Pletnikov
  11. Rick L Huganir
  12. Shigeki Watanabe
  13. Atsushi Kamiya
  14. Miho Iijima
  15. Hiromi Sesaki
(2019)
Brain-specific Drp1 regulates postsynaptic endocytosis and dendrite formation independently of mitochondrial division
eLife 8:e44739.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44739

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.44739

Further reading

    1. Cell Biology
    Ryan M Finnerty, Daniel J Carulli ... Wipawee Winuthayanon
    Research Article

    The oviduct is the site of fertilization and preimplantation embryo development in mammals. Evidence suggests that gametes alter oviductal gene expression. To delineate the adaptive interactions between the oviduct and gamete/embryo, we performed a multi-omics characterization of oviductal tissues utilizing bulk RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq), and proteomics collected from distal and proximal at various stages after mating in mice. We observed robust region-specific transcriptional signatures. Specifically, the presence of sperm induces genes involved in pro-inflammatory responses in the proximal region at 0.5 days post-coitus (dpc). Genes involved in inflammatory responses were produced specifically by secretory epithelial cells in the oviduct. At 1.5 and 2.5 dpc, genes involved in pyruvate and glycolysis were enriched in the proximal region, potentially providing metabolic support for developing embryos. Abundant proteins in the oviductal fluid were differentially observed between naturally fertilized and superovulated samples. RNA-seq data were used to identify transcription factors predicted to influence protein abundance in the proteomic data via a novel machine learning model based on transformers of integrating transcriptomics and proteomics data. The transformers identified influential transcription factors and correlated predictive protein expressions in alignment with the in vivo-derived data. Lastly, we found some differences between inflammatory responses in sperm-exposed mouse oviducts compared to hydrosalpinx Fallopian tubes from patients. In conclusion, our multi-omics characterization and subsequent in vivo confirmation of proteins/RNAs indicate that the oviduct is adaptive and responsive to the presence of sperm and embryos in a spatiotemporal manner.

    1. Cell Biology
    Hyunggu Hahn, Carole Daly ... Alex RB Thomsen
    Research Article

    Chemokine receptors are GPCRs that regulate the chemotactic migration of a wide variety of cells including immune and cancer cells. Most chemokine receptors contain features associated with the ability to stimulate G protein signaling during β-arrestin-mediated receptor internalization into endosomes. As endosomal signaling of certain non-GPCR receptors plays a major role in cell migration, we chose to investigate the potential role of endosomal chemokine receptor signaling on mechanisms governing this function. Applying a combination of pharmacological and cell biological approaches, we demonstrate that the model chemokine receptor CCR7 recruits G protein and β-arrestin simultaneously upon chemokine stimulation, which enables internalized receptors to activate G protein from endosomes. Furthermore, spatiotemporal-resolved APEX2 proteome profiling shows that endosomal CCR7 uniquely enriches specific Rho GTPase regulators as compared to plasma membrane CCR7, which is directly associated with enhanced activity of the Rho GTPase Rac1 and chemotaxis of immune T cells. As Rac1 drives the formation of membrane protrusions during chemotaxis, our findings suggest an important integrated function of endosomal chemokine receptor signaling in cell migration.