Retinoic acid-gated BDNF synthesis in neuronal dendrites drives presynaptic homeostatic plasticity

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

Homeostatic synaptic plasticity is a non-Hebbian synaptic mechanism that adjusts synaptic strength to maintain network stability while achieving optimal information processing. Among the molecular mediators shown to regulate this form of plasticity, synaptic signaling through retinoic acid (RA) and its receptor, RARα, has been shown to be critically involved in the homeostatic adjustment of synaptic transmission in both hippocampus and sensory cortices. In this study, we explore the molecular mechanism through which postsynaptic RA and RARα regulates presynaptic neurotransmitter release during prolonged synaptic inactivity at mouse glutamatertic synapses. We show that RARα binds to a subset of dendritically sorted brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf) mRNA splice isoforms and represses their translation. The RA-mediated translational de-repression of postsynaptic BDNF results in the retrograde activation of presynaptic Tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB) receptors, facilitating presynaptic homeostatic compensation through enhanced presynaptic release. Together, our study illustrates a RA-mediated retrograde synaptic signaling pathway through which postsynaptic protein synthesis during synaptic inactivity drives compensatory changes at the presynaptic site.

Data availability

All data generated and analyzed in this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files; the source data files contain the numerical data and original images used to generate the figures.

Article and author information

Author details

Shruti Thapliyal

Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Kristin L Arendt

Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Anthony G Lau

Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Lu Chen

Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, United States

For correspondence
luchen1@stanford.edu

Competing interests
Lu Chen, Senior editor, eLife.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8097-2699

Funding

National Institute of Mental Health (MH086403)

Lu Chen

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS11566001)

Lu Chen

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD104458)

Lu Chen

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 approved by the Stanford University Administrative Panel on Laboratory Animal Care (#29679) . All procedures conformed to NIH Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the Stanford University Administrative Panel.

Copyright

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.