MiR-124-dependent tagging of synapses by synaptopodin enables input-specific homeostatic plasticity
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ABSTRACT: Homeostatic synaptic plasticity is a process by which neurons adjust their synaptic strength to compensate for perturbations in neuronal activity. Whether the highly diverse synapses on a neuron respond uniformly to the same perturbation remains unclear. Moreover, the molecular determinants that underlie synapse-specific homeostatic synaptic plasticity are unknown. Here, we report a synaptic tagging mechanism in which the ability of individual synapses to increase their strength in response to activity-deprivation depends on the local expression of the spine-apparatus protein synaptopodin under the regulation of miR-124. By using genetic manipulations to alter synaptopodin expression or regulation by miR-124, we show that synaptopodin behaves as a "postsynaptic tag" whose translation is derepressed in a subpopulation of synapses and allows for non-uniform homeostatic strengthening and synaptic AMPAR stabilization. By genetically silencing individual connections in pairs of neurons, we demonstrate that this process operates in an input-specific manner. Overall, our study shifts the current view that homeostatic synaptic plasticity affects all synapses uniformly to a more complex paradigm where the ability of individual synapses to undergo homeostatic changes depends on their own functional and biochemical state.
SUBMITTER: Dr. Sandra Dubes
PROVIDER: S-SCDT-EMBOJ-2021-109012 | biostudies-other |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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