1. Cell Biology
  2. Neuroscience

Distinct neurexin-cerebellin complexes control AMPA- and NMDA-receptor responses in a circuit-dependent manner

  1. Jinye Dai  Is a corresponding author
  2. Kif Liakath-Ali
  3. Samantha Rose Golf
  4. Thomas C Südhof  Is a corresponding author
  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, United States
  2. Stanford University, United States
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78649
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  1. Jinye Dai
  2. Kif Liakath-Ali
  3. Samantha Rose Golf
  4. Thomas C Südhof
(2022)
Distinct neurexin-cerebellin complexes control AMPA- and NMDA-receptor responses in a circuit-dependent manner
eLife 11:e78649.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.78649
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Abstract

At CA1→subiculum synapses, alternatively spliced neurexin-1 (Nrxn1SS4+) and neurexin-3 (Nrxn3SS4+) enhance NMDA-receptors and suppress AMPA-receptors, respectively, without affecting synapse formation. Nrxn1SS4+ and Nrxn3SS4+ act by binding to secreted cerebellin-2 (Cbln2) that in turn activates postsynaptic GluD1 receptors. Whether neurexin-Cbln2-GluD1 signaling has additional functions besides regulating NMDA- and AMPA-receptors, and whether such signaling performs similar roles at other synapses, however, remains unknown. Here, we demonstrate using constitutive Cbln2 deletions in mice that at CA1→subiculum synapses, Cbln2 performs no additional developmental roles besides regulating AMPA- and NMDA-receptors. Moreover, low-level expression of functionally redundant Cbln1 did not compensate for a possible synapse-formation function of Cbln2 at CA1→subiculum synapses. In exploring the generality of these findings, we examined the prefrontal cortex where Cbln2 was recently implicated in spinogenesis, and the cerebellum where Cbln1 is known to regulate parallel-fiber synapses. In the prefrontal cortex, Nrxn1SS4+-Cbln2 signaling selectively controlled NMDA-receptors without affecting spine or synapse numbers, whereas Nrxn3SS4+-Cbln2 signaling had no apparent role. In the cerebellum, conversely, Nrxn3SS4+-Cbln1 signaling regulated AMPA-receptors, whereas now Nrxn1SS4+-Cbln1 signaling had no manifest effect. Thus, Nrxn1SS4+- and Nrxn3SS4+-Cbln1/2 signaling complexes differentially control NMDA- and AMPA-receptors in different synapses in diverse neural circuits without regulating synapse or spine formation.

Data availability

All numerical data and P values within this study have been included in the manuscript.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Jinye Dai

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    jinye.dai@mssm.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8497-3154

  2. Kif Liakath-Ali

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9047-7424

  3. Samantha Rose Golf

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Thomas C Südhof

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    tcs1@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3361-9275

Funding

National Institute of Mental Health (MH052804)

  • Thomas C Südhof

European Molecular Biology Organization (ALTF 803-2017)

  • Kif Liakath-Ali

Larry L. Hillblom Foundation (2020-A-016-FEL)

  • Kif Liakath-Ali

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

Ethics

Animal experimentation: All mouse studies were performed according to protocols (#18846) approved by the Stanford University Administrative Panel on Laboratory Animal Care.

Copyright

© 2022, Dai 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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