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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on July 24, 2008
Cerebral Cortex 2009 19(3):697-702; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhn118
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Dendritic Spine Morphology Determines Membrane-Associated Protein Exchange between Dendritic Shafts and Spine Heads

Sylvain Hugel1,2,5, Mathias Abegg1,6, Vincenzo de Paola3, Pico Caroni4, Beat H. Gähwiler1 and R. Anne McKinney1,2

1 Brain Research Institute, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland, 2 Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 3655 Promenade Sir-William-Osler, Montréal, Quebec H3G 1Y6, Canada, 3 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, HHM1, New York, NY 11724, USA, 4 Friedrich Miescher Institut, Maulbeerstrasse 66, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland

Address correspondence to Sylvain Hugel, PhD, Institut des Neurosciences Cellulaires et Intégratives, UMR7168/LC2 CNRS-Université Louis Pasteur, Dept. Nociception et Douleur, 1 rue René Descartes, F-67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France. Email: hugel{at}neurochem.u-strasbg.fr.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether variability in the shape of dendritic spines affects protein movement within the plasma membrane. Using a combination of confocal microscopy and the fluorescence loss in photobleaching technique in living hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons expressing membrane-linked GFP, we observed a clear correlation between spine shape parameters and the diffusion and compartmentalization of membrane-associated proteins. The kinetics of membrane-linked GFP exchange between the dendritic shaft and the spine head compartment were slower in dendritic spines with long necks and/or large heads than in those with short necks and/or small heads. Furthermore, when the spine area was reduced by eliciting epileptiform activity, the kinetics of protein exchange between the spine compartments exhibited a concomitant decrease. As synaptic plasticity is considered to involve the dynamic flux by lateral diffusion of membrane-bound proteins into and out of the synapse, our data suggest that spine shape represents an important parameter in the susceptibility of synapses to undergo plastic change.

Key Words: compartmentalization • FLIP • lateral diffusion • photobleaching • plasticity

5 Present address: INCI, UMR7168/LC2 CNRS-Université Louis Pasteur, 21 rue Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg cedex, France.

6 Present address: Human Vision and Eye Movement Laboratory, University of British Columbia, 2550 Willow Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.


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