Skip Navigation



Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on August 21, 2009
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp170
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Breustedt, J.
Right arrow Articles by Schmitz, D.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Breustedt, J.
Right arrow Articles by Schmitz, D.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Munc13-2 Differentially Affects Hippocampal Synaptic Transmission and Plasticity

J. Breustedt1, A. Gundlfinger1,2, F. Varoqueaux3,4, K. Reim3, N. Brose3,4 and D. Schmitz1,2

1 Neurowissenschaftliches Forschungszentrum, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany, 2 Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, 10117 Berlin, Germany, 3 Max Planck Institute of Experimental Medicine, Department of Molecular Neurobiology, 37075 Göttingen, Germany, 4 DFG Center for the Molecular Physiology of the Brain, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Address correspondence to Dr Dietmar Schmitz, Neuroscience Research Center, Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany. Email: dietmar.schmitz{at}charite.de.

The short-term dynamics of synaptic communication between neurons provides neural networks with specific frequency-filter characteristics for information transfer. The direction of short-term synaptic plasticity, that is, facilitation versus depression, is highly dependent on and inversely correlated to the basal release probability of a synapse. Amongst the processes implicated in shaping the release probability, proteins that regulate the docking and priming of synaptic vesicles at the active zone are of special importance. Here, we found that a member of the Munc13 protein family of priming proteins, namely Munc13-2, is essential for normal release probability at hippocampal mossy fiber synapses. Paired pulse and frequency facilitation were strongly increased, whereas mossy fiber long-term potentiation was unaffected in the absence of Munc13-2. In contrast, transmission at 3 other types of hippocampal synapses, Schaffer-collateral, associational-commissural, as well as inhibitory synapses onto CA3 pyramidal neurons was unaffected by the loss of Munc13-2.

Key Words: hippocampus • mossy fiber • presynaptic • release probability • synaptic plasticity • synaptic transmission

Received for publication March 4, 2009. Revision received July 21, 2009. Accepted for publication July 22, 2009.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.