電気シナプス – 至るところに存在するが、ほとんど研究されていないElectrical synapses – omnipresent and yet hardly explored
2022-04-05 マックス・プランク研究所
・ボルスト教授のチームは、これまでほとんど研究されてこなかったこの脳の構成要素を詳しく調べました。ショウジョウバエの脳において、電気シナプスがほとんどすべての脳領域に存在し、個々の神経細胞の機能と安定性に影響を与えることを示すことができた。
<関連情報>
- https://www.mpg.de/18511035/0405-psy-the-dark-matter-of-the-brain-155111-x?c=2249
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.040
ショウジョウバエの電気シナプスの解剖学的分布と機能的役割 Anatomical distribution and functional roles of electrical synapses in Drosophila
Georg Ammer 2,Renée M. Vieira,Sandra Fendl,Alexander Borst,Show footnotes
Currento Biology Open AccessPublished:April 05, 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.03.040
Summary
Electrical synapses are present in almost all organisms that have a nervous system. However, their brain-wide expression patterns and the full range of contributions to neural function are unknown in most species. Here, we first provide a light-microscopic, immunohistochemistry-based anatomical map of all innexin gap junction proteins—the building blocks of electrical synapses—in the central nervous system of Drosophila melanogaster. Of those innexin types that are expressed in the nervous system, some localize to glial cells, whereas others are predominantly expressed in neurons, with shakB being the most widely expressed neuronal innexin. We then focus on the function of shakB in VS/HS cells—a class of visual projection neurons—thereby uncovering an unexpected role for electrical synapses. Removing shakB from these neurons leads to spontaneous, cell-autonomous voltage and calcium oscillations, demonstrating that electrical synapses are required for these cells’ intrinsic stability. Furthermore, we investigate the role of shakB-type electrical synapses in early visual processing. We find that the loss of shakB from the visual circuits upstream of VS/HS cells differentially impairs ON and OFF visual motion processing pathways but is not required for the computation of direction selectivity per se. Taken together, our study demonstrates that electrical synapses are widespread across the Drosophila nervous system and that they play essential roles in neuronal function and visual information processing.
